With premium rates under pressure, sentiment towards insurers has certainly been better. So perhaps it's not surprising that the boss's wife at Lloyd's underwriter Beazley (BEZ) has been selling shares. Chief executive Andrew Horton's spouse - Mrs Sophie Horton - offloaded 200,000 shares on 14 May, netting £489,000.
That's unlikely to reflect a judgement on Beazley's recent performance, however. Amid a still fairly benign claims backdrop, broker Numis expects the underwriter to deliver a 90 per cent combined ratio (of claims to premiums) for 2014. That suggests solid underwriting profits are likely this year. Meanwhile, Beazley's first-quarter results earlier this month revealed a reasonable annualised return on the group's investment portfolio of 2.1 per cent.