(Bloomberg) ? Platinum Underwriters Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-based reinsurer, said the US Securities and Exchange Commission asked the company for information about a type of reinsurance that may be abused to smooth earnings.

The company received a ?comment letter? from the SEC requesting more detail on disclosures it had made about finite reinsurance contracts in its annual report, Platinum said in a regulatory filing yesterday. The company is preparing a response and doesn?t expect the additional information to be a material portion of its overall disclosure, the filing said.

The SEC and New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer subpoenaed the company about non-traditional reinsurance products such as finite last year after Platinum cancelled a reinsurance policy with a unit of Warren Buffett?s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. to avoid the perception that it was using the coverage to hide hurricane losses. Federal prosecutors in Manhattan sent a subpoena in June.

The comment letter seeks information on the economic benefit from the contracts, as well as how Platinum estimates premiums and reserves for claims, the filing said. The company said it believes the request stems from a routine review of its annual report and that other companies in the industry have been asked similar questions.

Platinum cancelled the policy purchased from Berkshire because the contract allowed Platinum to record a gain without a corresponding loss for Berkshire. The policy might have drawn scrutiny from regulators even though it met all accounting standards, Platinum said at the time.

Platinum general counsel Michael Lombardozzi and SEC spokesman John Nester didn?t return phone calls seeking comment.

Yesterday?s filing didn?t say whether the comment letter related to the Berkshire policy or how it differed from the SEC subpoena received in November. The SEC and Spitzer have subpoenaed more than a dozen insurers about their reinsurance accounting.

Shares of Platinum fell 29 cents to $34.40 in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. The stock has risen 23 percent in the past year.