Rolling coverage of the latest and economic news, as US sells 30-year bonds at highest borrowing costs since 2001

Insurer Aviva said it is helping customers affected by the wildfires near Stourbridge in the West Midlands, but said the fires were “not material” for the company, my colleague Joanna Partridge reports.

Aviva’s chief executive, Amanda Blanc, told reporters the company had been in contact with its customers “to make sure they’re in alternative accommodation”, adding: “It must be absolutely horrendous for those customers that have had their homes destroyed by fire.”

“In the longer term, we’re always obviously looking at the pricing models around exposure management, about what more we could do, about how we can actually help customers to prevent some of these events. Are there things that you can build into properties that will actually mitigate some of these events, I’m thinking particularly of flooding. That is an area where we are working on resilience, so we can help our customers be better prepared for when these events happen.”