Sunday marks the day 11 years ago that catastrophic Hurricane Andrew blasted the Southern seaboard of the United States. Andrew left some 40 people dead, a quarter of a million people homeless, and would prove to be the costliest natural disaster to hit the US.

The storm never came near Bermuda's shores but more than a decade later, Hurricane Andrew is still remembered on the Island not so much for the havoc it wrought but for the positive impact it would have on the local reinsurance market.

As is often the case - and so it was with Hurricane Andrew - disaster for one group can spell opportunity for another. In this case that group was investors that saw and seized on an opportunity in the property catastrophe reinsurance market.

By the end of the next year, eight reinsurers had set up on Bermuda in answer to a void in property catastrophe capacity following the massive claims resulting from the deadly storm. Those companies - Mid Ocean Re, Renaissance Re, IPC Re, Partner Re, Tempest Re, Cat Ltd., LaSalle Re and Global Capital Re - brought much needed capacity to a market where property-catastrophe insurers were left scrambling for adequate reinsurance coverage.

"The immediate financial and market consequences of Andrew for insurers were swift, severe and long lasting," said Robert Hartwig, senior vice president and chief economist at New York-based Insurance Information Institute (III). "Numerous smaller insurers became insolvent and the market for residential and commercial property coverage in coastal areas of the state dried up. Catastrophe reinsurance prices soared and available limits of coverage tumbled. Some Florida subsidiaries of large national insurers required infusions of capital to stay afloat," Dr. Hartwig remembered.

How badly did the devastating storm hit the insurance market? In total, Hurricane Andrew resulted in a flurry of 700,000 insurance claims and a bill of $16 billion in insured losses or some $20 billion in today's dollars, according to III figures.

But all these years later, what has happened to the eight reinsurers to set up in late 1992 and throughout 1993? Well, only three - Renaissance Re, PartnerRe, and IPC Re - still exist as stand-alone organisations.

The other five - Mid-Ocean Re, Global Capital Re, Cat Ltd., Tempest Re, and LaSalle Re - found their fate was to be, over the course of the next five years, acquired by other established Bermuda insurers and absorbed into their reinsurance programmes.

Cat. Ltd. and Tempest Re went to ACE Limited, and now form subsidiary ACE Tempest Re. Rival Bermuda-based insurer XL also bought up two of the 1993 companies - Mid-Ocean Re and Global Capital Re, which are now part of XL Re. LaSalle Re was the last to go up on the sales block with its 1999 purchase by Bermuda-based Trenwick. But financial woes were later to hit Trenwick and prompted it to sell off the in-force business of La Salle to 2001 start-up Endurance Specialty.

For their part, RenaissanceRe, PartnerRe, and IPCRe built strong, independent franchises that have carried them from strength to strength and established them as real players in the global reinsurance market.

What are some of the measures of success seen by these three Bermuda-based companies?

RenaissanceRe CEO James Stanard said the company had consistently posted a profit in each quarter of operation, and an operating return on equity of greater than 17 percent. The company also believes itself to be, worldwide, the largest writer of excess property catastrophe reinsurance.

For its part, IPCRe CEO James Bryce claimed the company is, after a decade in business, at its strongest financial position. On a risk-adjusted basis, Mr. Bryce said the company has a stronger balance sheet than any of its competitors including no goodwill, no intangibles, no debt and no real reinsurance recoverable issues to mar its financials. PartnerRe has grown to have the greatest global presence of the three 1993 reinsurers - the company, over the years, outgrew its original property-catastrophe model and expanded into other lines of business. It now has 830 staffing its worldwide offices and writes business across Europe, the US, Asia and South America. PartnerRe CEO Patrick Thiele said the company expects to write $3.5 billion in gross premiums this year alone.