The Commission de Control des Assurances (CCA), the French insurance regulator, has warned that as many as 10 French insurance companies are at risk of breaching their solvency ratios or worse as a result of the collapse in the equities market.

One small regional insurance company, understood to be Caisse Générale d'Assurance, is on the point of going under according to the CCA, in part as a result of falling equity markets.