Insurers will be minimally impacted by the SARS virus - unless there is an increase in global mortality rates, according to Robert Hartwig, chief economist and vice president of the Insurance Information Institute.

This means that Bermuda's insurers will also be minimally impacted by the outbreaks of the pneumonia-like illness, unless there is a change in the contamination rate.

"The impact (on US insurers) is really very little," said Mr. Hartwig. "There are various types of impact to consider, but direct impact or insurance claims is minimal."

The main related claims would be workers compensation, event cancellation, sales depression in Asia where house calls have been cancelled and loss of investments due to the depressed Asia markets, he said.

But the worst appears to be over as on Monday the World Health Organisation said that SARS cases appear to have peaked, with the exception of China where the first outbreaks occurred. "The principal worry, barring a mass epidemic, which means an increase in the mortality rate which would affect life insurance, is workers compensation cases," said Mr. Hartwig.

"This would mainly impact health care workers. Were they in the US there would be hundreds of workers potentially exposed both in and out of work. But in the US there are only about 40 cases, and most of these who have had contact with SARS are not job related, but people who have travelled to Asia. To that extent there is no significant exposure."

On March 15, after learning of more than 150 new suspected SARS cases in the previous week, including travellers to Canada and several Asian nations, the World Health Organisation declared a rare global alert, describing SARS as a world-wide health threat.

World Health Organisation officials say the alert was crucial in stopping transmission of the disease, notably to health workers, from sick people arriving in other countries from the affected areas.

Since the World Heath Organisation warning, there has been no spread of Sars through local transmission in countries other than those already affected - China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, Hanoi and Toronto in Canada.

Nevertheless, in early April the World Health Organisation advised screening of passengers from these areas and discouraged travel to Hong Kong or China's Guangdong province.

This travel warning was extended last week to some other parts of China and to Toronto, arousing the ire of the city's authorities which accused the World Health Organisation of laying waste to Toronto's economy without checking the measures being taken to get the Sars outbreak under control.

Mr. Hartwig said that event cancellation policies could also be affected as events were affected following the warnings, and there has already been a high-profile claim in Toronto for $7 million

"This group would like $7 million for an event that was cancelled, but this claim is probably somewhat dubious - there were no travel restrictions to Toronto at the time, and other conferences and sporting events were held there and leading health authorities said it was safe to visit."

He added that in Asia there had been a depression in sales of products as sales men and women were not able to do house calls. He said: "But that is a temporary phenomenon."

And finally he said that there was some secondary effect from the shifts in Asian markets.

"All in all there is very little effect at the moment," he said.