Insurers have invested heavily in “risk modelling” work, which aims to more closely match insurance policies and premiums to the likelihood of catastrophic losses. Communication links are currently restricted so there is limited information coming out of the affected areas. As a result, it is not possible at this time to determine the extent of our exposure. However, we will continue to monitor the situation as more information becomes available over the coming days and weeks.”Lord Levene, the chairman of Lloyd’s, is holidaying on the west coast of Malaysia and watched as the waves hit the coast yesterday morning.

We expect our exposure to be limited to holiday resorts, personal accident, travel insurance and marine risks. The economic cost of the tsunamis across south-east Asia will be counted in billions of dollars, but the insurance industry warned yesterday that the final bill will take months, if not years, to calculate.
The timing of the disaster could not have been worse for the global insurers, who were congratulating themselves on having escaped relatively unscathed from the American hurricane season and on making close to record profits across the industry for the year as a whole. In addition, relatively few people in the affected areas will have life insurance cover.The biggest insurance loss for a natural disaster was Hurricane Andrew in the US in 1992, which cost $21bn (£11bn). None of the top 10 have affected developing economies.A spokeswoman for Lloyd’s of London said: “We are closely monitoring the developing situation in Asia. The industry says that it is too early to guess whether the economic cost of the disaster will outstrip that of any of the hurricanes, with some hoping that the developing nation status of the affected countries will mean lower pay-outs.Although the human toll of yesterday’s disaster was incomparably worse, the cheaper cost of living and lower labour costs will mean that the value of lost business is lower and rebuilding costs more modest. Bookmakers were expecting to shell out hundreds of thousands of pounds yesterday after snow fell across much of the UK on Christmas Day. Only London stayed completely snow-free.Warren Lush, of Ladbrokes, said: “It’s a winter wonderland for punters, while bookmakers have been thrown into the deep midwinter.”.

If they do, after Belmarsh they are seriously misguided.ASIF NAQVI London SW19 Regime change Sir: Alan Milburn says that the next election will be the Thatcherites’ last stand. Finally, an end to Blair and New Labour!DAVE EDWARDS Doncaster In with the new Sir: My favourite gift always arrives after Christmas and is called January.COLIN S JEFFREY York. What does he think demons do?JAMES McGRORY Tashkent, Uzbekistan By a nose Sir: May I offer heartfelt sympathy to Richard Dawkins (letter, 24 December)? It must be very sad after a lifetime spent pursuing the theory of natural selection, to remain unable to find any joy in one of the few children’s fables which extols that theory – “Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer”! Wishing both you and him a taste of that joy which many have known over the last 2000 years in the Christian Gospel (and hoping my wish does not give him gratuitous offence!),HARRY PAYNE Southwell, Nottinghamshire British freedoms Sir: P Cooper asks if Sikhs came to this country “For its democracy, freedom of speech and tolerance?” and answers:”Obviously not” I don’t think anyone comes to this country for those things. Forty years ago, I commented on the same phenomenon in an elderly friend’s garden.

She told me she always cut the last roses for her husband’s birthday on 18 December.MARY NORTH Wirksworth, Derbyshire Bashing burglars Sir: Richard Welch’s advocacy of lacrosse sticks as handy burglar swats (letter, 22 December) betrays the lamentable techniques observable in all male participants in that noble game. They suppose it to be a cross between an egg-and-spoon race (stick held horizontally, with ball in net) and the better efforts of Genghis Khan (any bloke approaching your goal with the ball gets his head smashed by the upraised sticks of the defence line-up).The women’s game, on the contrary, ensures that the ball is kept in the net by the centrifugal force induced by rapid “cradling”, the player meanwhile dodging defenders, who would attack not her person but her stick.Personally, I’m considering the example of my grandmother, whose plan to confront burglars involved a First World War French bayonet, but today it would no doubt have to stay in its scabbard. That occurred regularly during the five years we spent there, and has continued in our current garden ever since we moved to Pontypool in 1978.Even today we have a few bush and climbing rose blooms evident, and one small azalea in flower.Perhaps correct and careful pruning has, in the past, denied good gardeners these experiences?NORMAN MILLS PontypoolSir: This late-flowering rose thing is odd but I don’t think it is a result of global warming. whose roots reach to college days”, to their daughter’s daughter “now a little person enjoying homework, skiing and Brownies”, and “mother Lydia’s transition to a nursing home” where “she enjoys the social interaction and feels at home”.BRIAN DAVIS Easton, Cambridgeshire Christmas roses Sir: I am sorry to contradict Phil Durden’s assertion (letter, 23 December) that seeing a rose at this time of year “would have been virtually impossible even 20 years ago”.In 1973, on our first Christmas Day whilst living in Ebbw Vale, at an altitude of about 300m, I felt some surprise at seeing a number of flowers on a red floribunda rose bush. However, it is not restricted to England and he might be interested to hear that I received an absolutely classic example from an American couple whom I met on holiday last year.Their circular letter is full of details about relatives I have never heard of: from “son Brent’s wedding with Maura Scanlon … The cards would be better sold to the public as what they are: a simple, purpose-designed method of verifying a person’s details.

So when opening a bank account, for example, rather than carrying a bulky passport, which not everyone owns, one can just slip an ID card into one’s wallet.I do not see how having a secure way of proving one’s identity is a breach of civil liberties. The only loss is people’s freedom to abuse the welfare state and to steal others’ identities. These people will be unaffected by an ID card system.Fundamentally I suspect the practical effect citizens are seeking is a reduction in illegal immigrants. We survived all those years of terrorist assault with nothing stronger than a green printed driving licence, but now the US has come under attack we are introducing identity cards.