Two rating agencies say Hurricane Ike will mean material losses for the insurance industry, but not necessarily enough to alter the current soft market direction.

Yesterday, Standard & Poor's and Fitch Ratings put out papers acknowledging that the losses from Ike, along with other tropical storms this season, could mean a downside in earnings for the industry.

"We believe the aggregate catastrophe losses from these successive storms are earnings events for the industry rather than capital events," S&P said.

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