NEW YORK, April 4 (UPI) -- As experts warn bird flu will soon hit the United States, analysts warn a pandemic could cause a slump in the life-insurance sector.
According to the Wall Street Journal, a new Morgan Stanley report has singled out life-insurance giant MetLife and smaller insurers including Reinsurance Group of America as the companies most vulnerable to a bird-flu pandemic.
The life insurers were chosen as most at risk based an analysis of the amount of life insurance they have underwritten, the WSJ said.
"A severe outbreak could have far-reaching repercussions for a large number of life insurers," said Morgan Stanley analyst Nigel Dally in the report.
The WSJ also quoted life insurance industry analyst David Kotok, with Cuberland Advisers in Vineland, N.J. that, in the event the bird-flu virus mutates and begins spreading among humans, it might be prudent to avoid "investing in sectors that depend on human-to-human contact, such as restaurants, hotels, and travel concerns," and to put resources instead into "sectors that help to circumvent such contacts, such as Internet stocks."
