Businesses owed money by failed Bermuda insurer Stockholm Re (Bermuda) Ltd. have been able to recover a quarter of the cash owed to them - nearly seven years after the company went bust.

According to the joint liquidators of the the company, a further five percent has been paid out this month, which added to 20 percent recovered in May, 2001, makes up 25 percent of the total owed.

"The dividends declared to date meet the objective of the scheme of arrangements of providing an early return of the estate's assets to creditors, but the joint liquidators and committee of inspection have retained sufficient assets to enable vigorous pursuit of reinsurance receivables," a statement from the joint liquidators, Mark Smith, David Morgan and James Smith of Deloitte & Touche said.

Stockholm Re first got into trouble in the early 1990s and by 1995 had been forced into liquidation.

In 1996 liquidators told brokers, policy holders and potential creditors that almost $5 million had been collected from the reinsurers, but warned it could be years before any settlement would be made.

Stockholm Re was a property, marine and aviation insurer which entered run-off and ceased doing business in March 1994.

The statement from the joint liquidators said creditors in the scheme of arrangement whose claims have been agreed by the liquidators will be paid the second five percent dividend this month.

Formerly National Underwriters (Reinsurance) Ltd. when it first set up in 1979, Stockholm Re was in 1990 a 100 percent subsidiary of Stockholm Reinsurance Company, a Swedish company owned by Lansforaskringsbolagens AB.

The company was licensed to accept all types of insurance and reinsurance except for product and professional liability. Stockholm Re targeted reinsurance of property and marine business, mostly originating from the London market.

Like other property and marine reinsurers, the company took huge losses between 1988 and 1994, involving well-known catastrophes such as Piper Alpha, Atlantic Richfield, Phillips Petroleum, Cat 90A, Hurricane Andrew and the Northridge earthquake in California.

They also generated significant sustained losses and were exposed to Lloyd's personal stop loss policies for the 1989 and 1990 underwriting years.