The Next Developing Crisis: Insurers By Jim Cramer About this article: Every time we are about to get some positive pin action, some new piece of news involving either the banks or the insurers brings us right back to earth, if not lower. Nothing worries me as much as the insurers right now, including Berkshire Hathaway, which is a gigantic stock market insurer. So many of these insurers have sold annuities that could force them to make good on tens of billions of dollars that they did not hedge in the stock market. This stock market risk, and it extends to Buffett because of his huge sale of market puts (making his firm very long this market), is unfathomable if the government has to insure it too. And I think it will. Insurers are by nature opaque. Today Fitch downgraded Prudential, and that makes PRU ineligible for the federal commercial paper program. For the life of me, I... Or, call us at 1-866-321-TSCM (8726) Monday-Friday, 8 a.m.-6 p.m. ET. Outside the U.S. and in Canada, call 1-212-321-5200.

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