Lloyd's comfortable with subprime insurance claims

By Simon Challis, European Insurance and Funds Correspondent

LONDON, May 13 (Reuters) - Lloyd's of London [LOL.UL] does not expect a flood of claims from the subprime mortgage crisis, it said on Tuesday, but many business leaders think the scale of such claims will exceed those from the dot-com bubble.

Research conducted on behalf of the Lloyd's insurance market and released on Tuesday found that nearly half of the business executives polled thought subprime-related claims would outstrip those from the market turmoil caused by the end of the bubble in technology stocks in 2001.

The survey, intended to gauge the extent of growing litigiousness against businesses, also found that 50 percent thought individual company directors would be the target of subprime-related lawsuits.

Mortgage lenders, investment banks, hedge funds, homebuilders, rating agencies and equity brokers are likely to see professional liability claims from the subprime crisis, Lloyd's research of 183 global business leaders revealed.

"From a litigation perspective, the credit crisis is in its early days," Rob Mitchell, editor of the report, which was published in conjunction with the Economist Intelligence Unit, told journalists at a meeting.

But Lloyd's is not expecting a flood of claims from the U.S. mortgage meltdown, its chairman Peter Levene told the meeting.

"Claims will be well within our normal business expectations, and we don't think they will cause any undue concerns this year," Levene said.