Standard & Poor’s maintains negative outlook for insurers

The credit rating agency warned that it had not yet completed its review of the Allianz, Aviva and Axa groups.

In December 2011 S&P first warned that these groups all faced the possibility of a one notch downgrade due to the effect of their exposure to Eurozone sovereign debt.

A statement on the update from S&P read: "The bias of our insurance ratings in the Eurozone and Europe as a whole remains negative.

"Of our ratings, approximately 30% have negative outlooks or are on CreditWatch with