RenaissanceRe boss, James Stanard, has once again topped the league of insurance executive high earners - with an overall pay cheque of over $17 million.

In fact executives from the Bermuda reinsurer occupy five out of the top six places on the poll, which is compiled annually by maverick monthly newsletter InsideBermuda.

Mr. Stanard, whose basic pay is a more modest $484,380 a year but was bumped up by a $2 million bonus plus $13 million in options profit, was leagues ahead of the rest of the executives, earning 50 percent more than the next on the list, his colleague William Riker.

Mr. Riker also has a relatively modest salary of $316,785, but his total compensation package totalled $11.3 million after his options profit of $9 million leapfrogged him to second place.

The same happened with RenaissanceRe's John Lummis, number three and David Eklund, whose annual salary are $243,550 and $293,319 respectively, but options profits took them up to $8.3 million and $7.4 million respectively.

In all, RenaissanceRe's five top officers collectively profited by $40 million from options.

But the firm's shareholders can have no complaints since their total investment return for the year, assuming dividends reinvested in the firm's stock, was 26.36 percent.

RenaissanceRe was one of the few companies to give investors good returns. Others were IPC Holdings at 6.56 percent, and Montpelier, which went public in October, recording a 44 percent return.

Top annual salary went to XL Capital top man Brian O'Hara, who earns a cool $1 million, plus $1 million bonus, but with a total compensation package of $3.6 million, he ranks in at number nine, below his colleague Henry Keeling , who may earn less than half of O'Hara, but more than made up for it with options profit, with a total package of $6 million.

Annuity and Life Re, which had a stock return of - 90.50, still had six executives in the top 50, with the chief financial officer John Burke at number 21, earning $1.13 million, which included a $400,000 bonus. The other four executives in this company did not get their annual bonuses.

Of all the publicly listed Bermuda insurers reviewed by InsideBermuda, 25 executives received a package of more than $1 million - up by three from last year.

Excluded from the review were senior executives from ESGRe, AlphaStar Insurance Group, Mutual Risk Management and Endurance Specialty Insurance, none of whom have filed proxy statements from which the statistics are derived.

The newsletter comments: "The relative paupers of the group were once again employees of the AIG-controlled IPC Holdings,whose five highest-compensated officers finished at the bottom 16, notwithstanding a total investment return of 6.56 percent. Evidently they would make more money screwing up elsewhere than being successful within the AIG group."