insurance business.

XL hopes to write high layer risks for large commercial corporations which are current XL excess liability insurance policyholders.

EXEL president and chief executive officer Mr. Michael Kevany said: "This action has been taken in response to demand from our current customers, who are faced with shrinking availability of excess level property insurance capacity.

"With assets in excess of $3.5 billion and shareholders equity approaching $2 billion, our organisation has the capital to offer substantial capacity to this class of business without affecting our ability to continue to grow the excess liability lines of business already offered by XL,'' said Mr. Kevany.

"We will shortly be providing policy and underwriting information to the insurance brokerage community and plan to begin underwriting excess property accounts before year-end,'' he said.

XL senior vice-president Mr. Bruce Connell said: "Much capacity has been withdrawn from this market In July, a major insurer of manufacturing facilities, Industrial Risk Insurers, withdrew for the high hazard market.

"We have been watching developments of the property side and had enquiries from existing clients about offering excess property insurance,'' he said.