Legal experts Terry O'Neill and Jan Woloniecki are predicting that the second edition of their authoritative textbook on reinsurance law will sell out and require a second printing.

Before even launching "The Law of Reinsurance" at a reception on Friday evening, more than 400 copies of the new text had already been sold.

As the standard work on reinsurance law, the first edition sold across the English speaking world and the pair expect sales to be as brisk the second time around.

"I'm guessing this is the first time [our publishers will ever have to reprint a textbook," said Mr. O'Neil, a partner with Clifford Chance in England.

Coming in at more than 1,000 pages, Mr. Woloniecki, a principal at the Bermuda firm Attride-Stirling & Woloniecki and Mr. O'Neil brought the new version of their text up to date to take into account all recent changes in reinsurance law and the surge in the Bermuda reinsurance market post 9/11.

They describe the text as a definitive reference for practitioners.

It is the only text to cover Bermuda law and regulation and is intended principally for legal advisors in the reinsurance industry or for lawyers in private practice who are advising reinsurance cases.

"The first edition of it was used in other Bermuda law firms by newly qualified lawyers and pupils as a kind of lifeboat because it is the only discussion of Bermuda law on various topics," Mr. Woloniecki said.

"There are other books on reinsurance law, but this is the best one because one is impossibly turgid and you can never find anything in there.

"The other one is written at a very basic level and it tells you what the cases say.

"Any lawyer who practices in this field actually knows what the cases say.

"What they are interested in is whether the cases are right and they are interested in issues being covered in the cases so what we tried to is impose some order on this very chaotic legal universe."

Bermuda's Chief Justice Richard Ground wrote the forward for the new edition and noted the role the insurance and reinsurance sector had to play in making modern Bermuda a thriving financial centre.

He wrote: "Much of this physical development is due to the insurance and reinsurance industry, and that has brought with it what the foreword to the first edition described as "a further captive industry" in the form of litigation and arbitration relating to this branch of the law.

"But the law governing this field is not readily accessible, even to the intuitive lawyer.

"We all need a ball of thread to lead us through the maze and this new edition is just that."

The second edition includes new cases in areas such as reinsurers rights, follow the settlements and material non-disclosure as well as new sections on London market practices and Bermuda market practices. Other chapters discuss the history of alternative risk transfer as well as changes as a result of new legislation in the UK.

Mr. Woloniecki's Bermuda colleague Neil Horner wrote chapters on the Regulation of Insurance / Reinsurance Companies in Bermuda and Segregated Account Companies under Bermuda law. Colleague Kim Wilkerson helped emphasise the Bermuda elements of the text by writing chapters on Bermuda Market Practice and the Bermuda Market.

Mr. Woloniecki says that the text has benefited by having just "two controlling minds" overseeing its creation.

"If you look at some English textbooks that are practitioner's texts you will find because the different chapters are written by different people that they sometimes take contradictory positions of what the law is.

"It is rather like the book of Genesis containing two different versions of the creation story.

"Why? Because it was written by two different people and the editing was badly done.

"This is a real problem with legal textbooks and the only answer is at most two people should sit down and do the whole thing."