Ward Says Insurance Rates Must Rise After BP Spill

The BP Plc oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico will push up the price of insurance on offshore drilling, said Lloyd’s of London Chief Executive Officer Richard Ward.

“Rates have to go up quite significantly,” Ward said in an interview on Bloomberg Television’s “In Business With Margaret Brennan” today. “Rates had fallen to quite a low level in the Gulf of Mexico for offshore energy. We’d been questioning the profitability of insurance in that region for quite some time.”