Reinsurance veteran Don Kramer is just about ready to go live with a new $1 billion Bermuda reinsurer ? Ariel Reinsurance Company Ltd.

Mr. Kramer, 67, who retired from an executive post with ACE Limited in May, has lined up virtually everything for the new venture: management, office space, technology and in excess of 20 staff.

Ariel is one of ten highly capitalised start-up ventures scrambling to join the Bermuda insurance market in time for the pivotal January 1 renewal period, when most insurance and reinsurance contracts are inked.

The new wave of Bermuda reinsurers is forming to take advantage of an expected surge in pricing after Hurricane Katrina, the August 29 storm that devastated the US Gulf Coast region and wiped up to $60 billion from insurance balance sheets. Rates for various types of insurance and reinsurance, particularly property-catastrophe policies, are expected to rise.

At least eight of the new ventures, including Ariel, already have approval to operate from insurance authorities at the Bermuda Monetary Authority.

Mr. Kramer and private investors backing Ariel may have a jump on the other 2005 start-ups after last month reaching an agreement to take over the infrastructure of Rosemont Re.

The Bermuda reinsurer, owned by troubled UK parent, Goshawk Insurance Holdings Plc., floundered after being hit by third-quarter hurricane claims.

?We expect to be in business quickly and hit the ground running,? Mr. Kramer said in a telephone interview at the weekend.

Plans are for Ariel to be operating by early December, and for it to be capitalised with $1 billion in ?unencumbered? capital, he said.

Under the arrangement with Rosemont, Ariel will take on Rosemont?s Queen Street, Hamilton office space, its modelling capabilities to help assess the risk of loss in each contract, and other technology infrastructure.

Ariel will not be exposed to any of Rosemont?s ?legacy? business ? claims from already sold policies.

Mr. Kramer is to be chairman and chief executive of Ariel, which is named after the sprite in William Shakespeare?s Bermuda-based epic, ?The Tempest?.

The name won?t surprise those that know Mr. Kramer?s history: He set up property-catastrophe reinsurer Tempest Re in 1993 when there was a surge in demand for this type of insurance product in the wake of Hurricane Andrew the year before. Tempest was later sold to ACE Limited and rebranded ACE Tempest Re. Mr. Kramer also joined ACE at that time.

While there are parallels between Mr. Kramer?s formation of Tempest and Ariel, with both being established in the wake of a costly hurricane season, there is a key difference.

Tempest was focused on selling property-catastrophe policies while the ?game plan? for Ariel is to be a ?broadly diversified company? selling a range of reinsurance products, Mr. Kramer said.

The Rosemont staff joining Ariel include Russell Brooke and Jonathan Beck, who were formerly CEO and CFO.

Mr. Brooke, who worked with Mr. Kramer previously at Tempest, will serve as chief operating officer, and Mr. Beck, who previously worked for several ACE units, is to be chief financial officer.

?We have the best of a start up and the best of a going company,? said Mr.Kramer.

Also joining Ariel are George Rivas, who founded Tempest Re with Mr. Kramer in 1993 and served as chief operating officer. Mr. Rivas is to be a special advisor to Ariel.

And Mark Herman, previously president of ACE Bermuda, is to become president of parent company, Ariel Re Holdings Ltd.

Mr. Kramer said Mr. Herman, a professional-liability specialist, would help build Ariel into a ?broadly diversified company?.

No one who knows Mr. Kramer, a Wall Street executive with investment firm Oppenheimer before starting his first reinsurer, thought his May retirement from ACE was going to last.

The self-confessed ?action junkie? has tried retirement before but never successfully.

Mr. Kramer formed Tempest Re a day after stepping down from another reinsurer he was founder and chairman of NAC Re Corporation.

He?s also no stranger to raising capital when opportunity knocks.

Not only has he capitalised start-up reinsurers like Tempest, and today, Ariel, he was on the front lines, along with then-chief executive and current ACE chairman Brian Duperreault, to raise $1.127 billion in new capital for ACE in 2001.The capital raising was done in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks creating the need for new capital to support a surge in demand for reinsurance.

?It was a strategy that helped distance ACE from the competition,? Mr.Kramer said in an earlier interview.

The competition? A wave of highly capitalised reinsurance companies that formed in the post-9/11 environment. Now four years later, ACE has already moved to shore up capital, again tapping capital markets for in excess of $1 billion. And Mr. Kramer is again on the front lines, except this time he?s back in the start-up trenches.