Bermuda's cat reinsurers are keeping their fingers crossed, watching the movements of Hurricane Hortense, after escaping relatively unscathed from hurricanes Edouard and Fran.

While it is still too soon to determine the full brunt of the exposure from Fran, property catastrophe reinsurers here believe their exposure would be minimal to modest.

The Bermuda companies contacted yesterday were cautiously optimistic that the recent spate of hurricanes will not significantly affect them.

Mid Ocean Re president and CEO Michael Butt said, "From the loss point of view, Fran hit around Cape Fear where there is relatively low levels of exposure. The view we are getting from the professional analysts at the moment, the losses are likely to be around $600,000 million to a $1 billion.'' Aggregate losses are usually beyond $3 billion to $4 billion before reinsurers like Mid Ocean Re become involved.

Helen Wilson of ACE Ltd. said there were already indications that Hurricane Fran would not significantly impact their newly acquired subsidiary, Tempest Re.

Tempest Re, Mid Ocean Re, IPC Re and RenaissanceRe have all written cover for Puerto Rico, but it remains doubtful that Hurricane Hortense's 80 miles per hour winds could generate the type of damage that would bring Bermuda's cats into play. All four reinsurance companies said yesterday it was too early to tell. RenaissanceRe's senior vice president and chief financial officer, Keith Hynes, said, "We've had two significant hurricanes since July 1 hit the US.

Edouard and Fran. We will sustain some modest claims from both of those.

"Both turned out at the end to be very favourable. Neither hit in high population, high loss areas.

"Fran hit the least populated parts of North and South Carolina. So while there will be losses, they won't be severe. Obviously a lot of people are affected, but the storm hit in areas where there were not a lot of insured value. Edouard hit Cape Cod instead of New York or Long Island, which would have been devastating.'' IPC Re vice president and chief financial officer John Weale said, "We don't have specific numbers. Based on the industry loss data that is currently available, we don't think we have a huge exposure, but it is too early to say until we get some more specific information from some of our ceding companies and also from our computer modelling people.

"That's as far as Fran is concerned. And for Hortense in Puerto Rico, it is really early. There is some damage there that we are aware of, but again it is too early.

"We have some limited business in the Caribbean, including Puerto Rico, but not much. And for Edouard, we are expecting no real claims from that.'' See story on Page 8