Bermuda will lose out on hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of business following the cancellation of a second seminar this week - and more could follow after it was revealed the Fairmont Southampton could be closed for up to six months.

This week one of the largest conferences to be hosted in Bermuda with 700 delegates plus their families was due begin - but was cancelled at the last minute as high winds started on Friday.

Organisers of MarHedge who were on the Island to make sure everything went smoothly, pulled the plug after the Sonesta was closed and the winds started to batter the Fairmont Southampton, where the conference was due to be held.

The Southampton hotel was so badly damaged it will be closed for up to six months now - which will affect a whole host of other conferences due to take place throughout the year.

And yesterday it was confirmed that the Sedgwick `Hot Topics for the Bermuda Insurance Market' due to be held tomorrow has also been postponed.

The event organised by law firm Sedgwick, Detert, Moran & Arnold LLP was mainly aimed at the Bermuda insurance market, but organisers decided to cancel following the storm.

They said they did not feel it was appropriate to go forward with plans for the seminar given the "trauma everyone on the Island is going through right now".

Bermudian lawyer Mark Chudleigh who works for Sedgwick in London was due to speak at the conference, yesterday confirmed that the event had been cancelled.

"Our seminar has been postponed," he said.

"We will be rescheduling and I will let you know as soon as a new date has been fixed."

Sedgwick's inaugural seminar was to be held at the Bermuda Underwater Exploration Institute, with lawyers from their offices in New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, Orange County and London all speaking on a wide range of topics.

Richard Geddes, a partner in Sedgwick's Chicago office, said the decision had been made to hold off on the seminar. "Our decision was based on two pressing reasons.

"We realised that 11 partners were to be in Bermuda and travel logistics were such that it was becoming clear by Saturday that (to get to the Island) would be either impossible or extremely difficult."

Mr. Geddes said that a more pressing concern was the difficulties facing residents in the aftermath of the storm, and that the company felt this would not have been the most appropriate time to have the session. But he stressed that this was not a cancellation, but a postponement.

"I would guess that we will probably reschedule in November but we need to re-group with the partners (before we set a date). It will certainly be this year," Mr. Geddes said.

Mr. Geddes said up to 100 insurance executives from the local market had been expected to attend this week's seminar.

Many of the MarHege delegates and organisers are also stranded on the Island as they have not been able to get off yet due to damage at the airport. And they have been moved to hotels across Bermuda after the Southampton Princess and Sonesta were evacuated.

The closure of these hotels cast into doubt the future of other seminars, such as the Bermuda Angle, due to take place a the end of the month, the Hawksmere 17th International Reinsurance Congress, due to take place in October and the World Insurance Forum in February.

There is limited space in Bermuda for large conferences and most book to one of the two - if not both - to hold their delegates and their families.

Efforts to contact organisers of other conferences to be held in the Fairmont Southampton yesterday were not successful.