ermuda insurer Arch Capital estimates that it will do as well during 2004 as it did during 2003, when it posted a huge jump in earnings, according to management.

During 2003, the company made $280.6 million ? five times the amount the post-September 11 start up made a year earlier.

?Barring any major catastrophe, we should have an equally good 04,? said Dwight Evans, president of Arch Re, the main reinsurance subsidiary of the company.

And he said yesterday that the renewals season in January had gone well, when about 40 percent of the company?s business was renewed.

Mr. Evans also pointed out an analyst report by Credit Suisse First Boston which said: ?Arch is the most seasoned of the new Bermuda companies. It would also appear to be growing at higher rate than the others. Part of the attraction is the balanced mix of business. Arch has both large insurance and reinsurance operations and both large property and casualty business.?

The overall company has 54 employees in Bermuda and at present has 32 employees in the reinsurance company in Bermuda and 18 in the insurance company, based in Victoria Hall (which operates independently) and four in the holding company.

?In Bermuda we may expand slightly, mostly in the service side and into our back office claims and accounting, which is really a natural expansion as we become more mature and the claims continue to develop,? he said. And he said that the company was delighted with the good results, which were posted on Wednesday and were well received by the analyst and investment communities.

?We are very happy with our results and our growth at a time in the market when the environment was very positive. It was clearly a hard market starting at the end of 2001.

?And it was our game plan from the beginning to establish ourselves with the clients and the brokers we want to be with long term. So again, I have said this before, but it is an incredibly exciting time for a new company to start and build a platform for the future.?

Mr. Evans said that while the property market was showing signs of becoming soft, the casualty business was holding its ground.

And if market conditions softened further, he said that Arch was in a strong position to weather any storm, and was agile enough to swap lines of business to take on the most profitable lines. ?The crystal ball for the future is difficult,? he said. ?You talk about low interest rates and it is really based on three or four variables, and if they remain constant today. Nothing stays the same as we know. Interest rates go up, and interest rates go down and when that happens it will impact the direction of the market.?

And he added that the company was set to break into Europe and had made an application to get a licence to open a London office ? and move into Europe from there.

But he said that the company had no plans to grow by acquisition, but hoped that any growth would be organic and they would hire key people or teams rather than take over companies to move into new markets.

?I think we are looking to expand outside the US on the insurance side, so we are in the process of forming a UK company, based in London. So we are in the process of getting an SFA licence,? he said.

?We feel that it is important to have a presence in London, even though Bermuda has taken market share from London, it still remains one of the main centres of insurance and reinsurance. But it would serve as our platform for expanding into Europe, absolutely.?

He added that the firm had a contact office in Italy but wanted to expand more so in Europe, primarily on the casualty side.

?But it is difficult as a new company and a Bermuda company. And so it is a challenge for us to compete with some of the older and more established companies in Europe. So it one we work very hard at trying to get over,? he said.

Mr. Evans said that while there were good opportunities to buy out companies in order to expand, it was not a business model they wanted to follow.

?Our preference is not to buy other people?s problems and more to buy people and teams of people. You know I think history has proved that it is very difficult to determine what the right price should be for a company that has been in existence for a long period of time,? he said.

?So organic growth, and if it means hiring individuals and or teams of people we will entertain that. Certainly Europe is a mature market place and one we feel long term is a very good place to be. Our challenge is to get over the stigma of being a new company and that?s a challenge, because Europeans like to deal with older, established local companies, but I think we can overcome that.?