RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. said yesterday that William I. Riker, president of the company and president and CEO of its Glencoe Group Holdings Ltd. unit, will reduce his workload for a few months to receive treatment for an unspecified medical condition.

Mr. Riker, 45, will remain president of RenaissanceRe Holdings, but William J. Ashley, chief underwriting officer of Glencoe Group and president and COO of Glencoe Insurance, will assume leadership of the individual risk unit. He will report to James N. Stanard, RenaissanceRe Chairman and CEO, on an interim basis.

?Bill Riker has made enormous contributions to the success of RenaissanceRe over the last eleven years, and it is now our turn to support him as he devotes himself to his medical treatment,? said Mr. Stanard. ?Our thoughts are with him during this time, and we look forward to his making a full recovery.

?Bill Ashley is a skilled and seasoned industry professional, and he has worked very closely with Bill Riker in building the individual risk business during the past three years. He is well positioned to oversee this unit?s continued growth and success.?

A spokesman for RenaissanceRe said yesterday that the announcement had nothing to do with a reprimand that Mr. Riker, Mr. Stanard and three of their colleagues received last month from the board of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd.

The company had to restate earnings after its independent directors said in the company?s annual report that the five executives ?made mistakes and in some instances lacked due care in connection with the original accounting? in a four-year-old reinsurance arrangement with Bermuda-based Inter-Ocean Reinsurance Co.

RenaissanceRe masked the true nature of its improper reinsurance arrangement in 2001 by breaking it into two parts, the company said in its annual report. Viewed together, the transactions failed to transfer risk to Inter-Ocean, according to an internal review conducted by law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP for RenaissanceRe?s board.

The incorrect accounting stemmed from a type of reinsurance under investigation by the US Securities and Exchange Commission and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. The regulators are concerned that companies may be using finite reinsurance policies as disguised loans to smooth earnings. RenaissanceRe has received subpoenas from both.

In their filing, the independent members of the board of directors also announced plans to discuss their findings directly with Mr. Riker and each of his four colleagues ? chief executive officer James Stanard, chief financial and operating Officer John M. Lummis, senior vice president Michael W. Cash and controller Martin J. Merritt.

Yesterday the spokesman denied comment on whether the board had followed through with their discussions.