Chairman's wife sells Hiscox shares

The wife of specialist insurance firm Hiscox's chairman Robert Hiscox has pocketed more than £80,000 from the sale of shares in the company.

Julia Hiscox offloaded 20,000 at 411p a time. The announcement of the sale comes the week after the Bermuda-based company said Robert Hiscox sold 56,398 shares at just over 410.5p a time. Both sales were made on 3 May.

Hiscox has been hit hard by catastrophes in Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

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The company, whose specialist areas include the art market, said claims estimates for the 2011 New Zealand earthquake and Queensland, Australia floods remained unchanged at £60m and £15m respectively.

This estimate is based on an insured market loss of US$10 billion for the New Zealand Earthquake and US$2.4bn for the floods in Queensland.

Hicox remains uncertain over costs resulting from the Japanese earthquake but estimates that based on an insured market loss of approximately US$24bn, it could incur net claims of between $60 million and $150m.

Robert Hiscox joined the company, which was founded by his father Ralph, in 1965. He has been chairman of the main holding company since 1973.

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