Andrew is as high as $30 million, according to sources in the local insurance industry.

After reinsurance is taken into account, Paumanock's loss on Andrew is thought to be around $10 million, according to people in the industry.

They said Paumanock was heavily exposed to the disaster and had suffered heavy losses.

Mr. Robin Spencer-Arscott, the local spokesman for Paumanock and Anchor Underwriting Managers, which underwrites for Paumanock, said he was not authorised to give a figure for the loss.

But sources said there was no doubt the company had taken a "big bang'' over Andrew, which struck in August, devastating large areas of Florida, Louisiana and the Bahamas.

"Brokers are being told that the gross loss is $30 million,'' said one source.

Other local firms in the property casualty treaty business also took losses, although nowhere near as heavy as Paumanock's.

Mr. Chris Fullerton, vice president and general manager of Brittany Insurance Company, said his firm suffered a loss of $2 million from Andrew, none of which was reinsured.

"For Brittany, it's a very manageable loss and one we would expect considering the portfolio we have written in 1992,'' he said.

"It's on a par with Hugo and the 1990 storms in Europe.'' Brittany's annual results would not be too adversely affected by the loss, he said.

"It will certainly not lead to Brittany making a loss,'' he added. "At roughly the $2 million level, it will not have any kind of a real effect on our results.'' Mrs. Gail Martin, of NRG Victory Management (Bermuda), said initial estimates of a $350,000 loss for NRG just after Andrew had struck had proved to be fairly accurate.

"It would have been far worse for us if it had been something which had mainly hit the Caribbean islands,'' she said.

"We try to stay out of the Florida area. As a result, we have not been badly affected.'' By comparison, Hurricane Hugo had cost NRG a little over $1 million, she said.

Another Bermuda-based company thought to have been adversely affected by Andrew is Stockholm Re.

Nobody at the firm was available for comment at Press time yesterday.

Hurricane Andrew, whose winds reached as high as 160 m.p.h., is the costliest catastrophe to hit the insurance industry to date.

Its trail of devastation is estimated to have cost the insurance industry worldwide about $8 billion, almost double the $4.2 billion paid by insurers in 1989 when Hurricane Hugo battered the Carolinas in the US.

The insured loss estimates for Andrew's damage do no include damage to military installations, roads, utilities, bridges, parks and other government and public property, which is largely uninsured.