The devastation wreaked by the recent earthquakes in Japan is likely to have little impact on Bermuda's reinsurance market.

That is according to Jim Bryce, CEO of IPC Holdings Ltd, who believes the payouts from reinsurers on the island to insurance companies in Japan will be negligible.

But he also reckons it is too early to call what kind of an effect any further natural disasters this year might have on the Island's insurance and reinsurance firms, on top of the payouts made for the floods in the UK and Australia.

Two earthquakes hit Japan in the space of two days, the first 6.8-magnitude tremor striking in the Niigata area, central Japan, killing at least seven people, flattening buildings and triggering a fire at a nuclear power plant.

Meanwhile the second, which had a magnitude of 7.2 and was offshore, around 16 miles below the Miyagi prefecture, hit the country's north-east coast, injuring at least 40 people and shaking buildings in the captial Toyko, some 200 miles away.

Mr. Bryce pointed out that, despite the casualties it claimed, the earthquake struck in a very rural area with little industry or residential housing.

"It is in an area that is not very heavily built up — it is very rural," he said. "Some electronic companies have got factories out there, but apart from that there isn't much else.

And he reckons insurers and reinsurers will not be too troubled financially by the disaster.

"It was a big tragedy, but it is not going to be a very large insurance cost to insurance and reinsurance companies," he said.

"We could be talking in the region of a hundred million dollars, which is a lot of money if it is in your bank account, but it is a negligible amount to insurers and reinsurers — to them it is not a lot of money.

"The flashpoint would be when you are talking about billions of dollars to get any sort of reaction, or bonding, as we say in the industry.

"It is a not a very meaningful market event in terms of capital and rates."

With IPC having issued a profit warning and set to make an announcement on their second quarter results some time next week, Mr. Bryce said it was hard to judge the outcome any future disasters may have on Bermuda's insurance and reinsurance market following on from the summer's floods in the UK and Australia.

"We have established that the flooding in both the UK and Australia will have an impact on earnings," he said. "The two market events in both the UK and Australia are large market losses and they will certainly impact on the 2008 year, but there is so much left which could happen in 2007.

"I am just a little bit surprised that everyone around the world was watching Wimbledon, where it rained most of the time, and didn't notice a lot of water equals floods, particularly in other parts of the UK.

"How many storms are we going to have before the end of the year? How many of these straws are there left to break the proverbial camel's back? - it is too early to tell."

A number of other reinsurance companies, including PartnerRe, similarly reported little impact from the Japan earthquakes.