Axis Capital CEO John Charman is still top of the pile when it comes to the director or officer with the highest value shareholding in his or her own publicly-listed company in the Bermuda insurance market.

The 57-year-old's shares in Axis Capital - the company he founded on the Island in 2001 - were worth $204 million as of July 30, 2010, up 22 percent over the $167 million holding 13 months ago, according to a survey by the Offshore Alert website's Inside Bermuda newsletter.

In second place for the second consecutive year was Dominic Silvester, 49, CEO of Enstar Group, with shares worth $157 million - a 25 percent increase on 2009.

Former Flagstone Re executive chairman Mark Byrne, 48, who has stayed on with the company as a non-executive member of the board since stepping down in May, was third with a shareholding worth $111 million. The survey reviewed the shareholdings of 280 officers and/or directors of 23 publicly-listed offshore re/insurers, with all but three companies domiciled in Bermuda. The figures were taken from filings the companies made with the US Securities and Exchange Commission in proxy statements and 10-Ks in the first half of this year, including all shares they were deemed to beneficially own.

Ace's chairman and CEO Evan Greenberg, 55, came in at number five with $96,.5 million worth of shares, closely followed by Arch Capital's vice-chairman John Pasquesi, 50, and chairman, president and CEO Constantine Iordanou, 60, in sixth and seventh with $90.5 million and $87.1 million respectively.

Completing the top 10 were White Mountains' chairman Raymond Barrette, 59, and Endurance Specialty's chairman Kenneth LeStrange, 52, with respective holdings of $70.7 million and $57.1 million.

Just outside were RenaissanceRe's president and CEO Neill Currie, 57, with $45.9 million worth in shares, PartnerRe's president and CEO Patrick Thiele, 59, with $40.2 million to his name.

Joseph Taranto, 61, who announced last week that he will be stepping down as CEO of Everest Re at the end of this year, had a shareholding worth $40 million, while Ed Noonan, 51, chairman and CEO of Validus Holdings, has $36.1 million in shares.

Bermudians on the list included Preston Hutchings, 53, chief investment officer of Arch Capital Group, whose shares were worth $7.7 million; James Gibbons, 46, a director of RenaissanceRe, with shares worth $356,137; and Cheryl-Ann Lister, 52, a director of Axis Capital, with shares valued at $324,854.

Among the key findings of the study were that 20 percent of all directors and officers beneficially-owned shares in their own company with a market value of at least $10 million and 57 percent owned shares worth at least $1 million.

It also revealed that only 3.6 percent of the 280 directors and officers were women and seven of those listed were in their 30s, the youngest being 33-year-old Yehuda Neuberger, a director of Maiden Holdings, with a shareholding worth $850,000. Thirty eight-year-old Barry Zyskind, chairman of Maiden Holdings, had shares worth $29 million. Meanwhile the oldest director and officer was 82-year-old Frank Tasco, a director of Axis Holdings, with shares worth $2 million, while the average age of all who qualified was 57.

The highest ranked of the 10 females featured in the 280 was Elizabeth Mitchell, of Platinum Underwriters, whose $8 million worth of shares put her in 58th place.

Everest Re had three of the six oldest directors, with one aged 77 and two aged 80.