So how much did the man who heads Bermuda’s biggest insurance and reinsurance company earn last year?

The total compensation for Evan Greenberg, president and chief executive officer of Ace, including salary, bonuses, stock awards, housing and jet aircraft allowance, totalled $20.8 million during 2006.

ACE reported profits of $2.3 billion over the course of the year, and as the man at the helm Mr. Greenberg was given a straight salary of $1m for his part in that success.

But that is only the start of his reward in terms of compensation which mounts up, through various stock awards, bonuses, and other expenses, as reported in Ace’s proxy statement.

The publicly available statement allows the ordinary man or woman in the street to be “pokey” — to coin a Bermudian term — and see what life is like for the Island’s ultimate high-fliers.

When it comes to the salary and other expenses amongst Ace’s officers the overall numbers generally have the same amount of digits as a typical Bermuda telephone number, although a few have an extra digit on top.

The company requires that Mr. Greenberg keeps a secondary home in Bermuda and uses the Ace corporate private jet wherever possible for security reasons. The cost of his use of the private jet in 2006 totted up to $279,280, all paid for by the company, as was his annual housing allowance for his second home in Bermuda.

That property is rented through the company’s not-for-profit entity the Ace Foundation, and costs $22,000 a month, totalling $264,000 for the year.

Mr. Greenberg, 52, was also given a $434,651 retirement plan contribution from Ace, along with a bonus of $3.6m and stocks and options that mount up to just over $15m.

Ace works out what pay, benefits and other compensation to give its officers by paying close attention to what other competitors are giving their top staff.

Determining the right level of salary, bonus and such like, Ace’s compensation committee reviews a “benchmarking peer group” to see what they are doing. The companies within the current peer group include Aon Corporation, Chubb Corporation, XL Capital, and Marsh & McLennan Companies.

Compensation data from the giant American International Group is also monitored but is excluded from the summary statistics used by the company because of AIG’s size.

The compensation awards of other Bermuda-based Ace officers are also featured in the proxy statement, including former president, CEO and chairman Brian Duperreault, 59, who retired as chairman in the middle of 2006 but remains non-executive chairman.

Mr. Duperreault’s total compensation for 2006, second only to Mr. Greenberg’s, was $11,285,809. That included a salary of $603,750 and a $2m bonus for his five months as executive chairman at the start of 2006, before he became non-executive chairman.

He also accrued $343,601 of private jet usage paid for by Ace. As he is no longer executive chairman Mr. Duperreault’s personal use of the corporate jet is now limited to space availability on normally scheduled management business flights.

When Mr. Duperreault steps down as non-executive chairman he will continue to be provided with administrative support and office space from Ace for the following five years.

Chief financial officer Philip Bancroft’s total compensation package was around $6m, and that included $216,000 housing allowance for his second home in Bermuda, which like Mr. Greenberg is leased from the Ace Foundation.

Ace has scheduled its 2007 annual general meeting for May 17 at its global headquarters in Hamilton. Mr. Greenberg is due to assume the role of company chairman at that time, and shareholders will be asked to approve the appointment of Mr. Duperreault, Robert M. Hernandez, Peter Menikoff, Robert Ripp and Dermot F. Smurfit as directors to serve three-year terms to expire in 2010.