Alex Ferguson wrote:

As you may have been aware (if you haven't, then where have you been? Lapland?), there seems to have been a small subprime mortgage disaster in the UK and US, causing hurricanesque damage to companies' share prices.

We met up with Jim Bryce, IPCRe's CEO in Bermuda, and he didn't mince his words on where the fault lay...

"Everyone should have known better across the board. All those involved had so many gates and gate keepers where the problems should have been identified and stopped, but instead were continuously shown through. This was from mortgage brokers, to the bankers, to the rating agencies, to the regulators, and ultimately to the investors.

"In the insurance industry we’re in the business of risk and with proper enterprise risk management, it’s crazy to take major risks in investment income. Every investment manager involved in a big way in sub prime and the like, should get an ‘A’ for being an idiot, if not an ‘A+’."

Frankly, we at Reinsurance are pretty proud if we get an A+, but under the Bryce-ometer of stupidity, we'd be happy with a 'F', thank you.