NEW YORK (Reuters) - In a market where investors have no appetite for risk, just one company is willing to bet it can successfully debut its stock.

Bermuda-based property and casualty insurer Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. hopes to sell as much as $259 million of shares in an initial public offering on Wednesday.

Endurance will carry as much momentum as an IPO candidate could hope for. Property and casualty premiums are rising; its backers, like Aon Corp. and Texas Pacific Group, have deep pockets; and the two Bermuda property and casualty insurers that went public before it have outpaced the market.

But with the economy sputtering and war with Iraq looming, investors have been loath to invest in newly public companies. Just three IPOs raising $285 million have been sold this year, less than one-fifth of the proceeds raised during the same period last year.

To sell the IPOs, investment banks were forced to delay the sales and reduce the offering price of two of them.

"In this market all bets are off," said Sal Morreale, who follows IPOs for Cantor Fitzgerald. "Investors aren't in any mood to make a commitment."

The challenge for Goldman Sachs Group and Merrill Lynch & Co., the managers of the Endurance IPO, is to get investors to commit ahead of the sale. Investors' have waited until the last minute to see if the market is up or down, said Morreale.

If the investment banks fail to get enough orders by early next week, they may be forced to advise Endurance to drop its asking price of $25 to $27 per share or postpone the sale.

Endurance is one of a string of Bermuda insurers created to take advantage of soaring premiums after the September 11 attacks. The company was created in December of 2001 after raising $1.2 billion from Aon, Zurich Financial Services Group, private equity funds Thomas H. Lee Partners, L.P. and Texas Pacific Group, Credit Suisse First Boston Private Equity and other investors.

By the end of last year it had grown to $2.1 billion of assets and $1.2 billion in shareholders' equity.