Parent Amlin Plc plans to raise ?215 million ($381 million) in a share offering, but start-up will have total capital in the region of $1 billion. Amlin announced its plans to form a new Bermuda reinsurer before the run of storm losses and hopes to have it up and running in the next month.

New reinsurer being set up by investments from private equity fund Trident III, L.P. and insurance giant Chubb Corporation. Already registered with the Bermuda Registrar of Companies, it is to be backed by about $1.5 billion in capital. The company has an agreement to take over Chubb's reinsurance business from January 1. Liabilities from policies already sold will remain with Chubb, leaving Harbor Point with a clean balance sheet. John Berger, a Chubb Re executive, is to be chief executive while Stephen Friedman, a senior advisor to Stone Point Capital, which manages Trident, is to be non-executive chairman.

Richard Brindle and Capital Z Financial Services Partners are forming the company, which is expected to start with about $1 billion in capital. Mr. Brindle is a former underwriter at Charman Underwriting Acencies, the company founded by John Charman, now chief executive of 2001 start-up Axis Capital Ltd. Lancashire plans to sell marine, energy and other short-tail risks, according to news reports.

Jeffrey Greenberg, former chairman and chief executive of Marsh & former chairman and chief executive of Marsh & McLennan Cos., is proposing to set up a new insurance company in Bermuda with capital from a private-equity firm formed with partners. Validus Reinsurance Company Ltd. will be the operating unit, and the company is expected to have up to $1.5 billion in capital to sell short-tail policies. The Validus companies were incorporated as Bermuda entities last month.

:Private investors led by former ACE Limited vice chairman Don Kramer are to buy parts of Rosemont Re from troubled UK parent Goshawk Insurance Holdings Plc as part of a plan to set up a new Bermuda-based reinsurer. Bloomberg News reported that the investors will create the new Bermuda company with capital of at least $750 million. Mr. Kramer is a highly respected insurance executive who founded Bermuda-registered Tempest Re in 1993 in the wake of Hurricane Andrew, which sent catastrophe insurance premiums soaring.

XL Capital revealed involvement in another Bermuda reinsurer to be backed by between $500 million and $1 billion in capital. Details were sketchy but XL said the venture's lead investor was an alternative asset management firm, and that XL would cede some of its property-catastrophe risks to the new reinsurer.