John Berger, chief executive and president of new Bermuda reinsurer Harbor Point, quite literally stands out in Bermuda ? the former college basketball player and coach is a good head taller than many of his peers.

Otherwise, he?s blending right in.

?If you have been in this business long enough you know everybody,? he says of slotting into the Bermuda reinsurance market.

Mr. Berger has, for the last eight weeks, called a Bermuda cottage his home-away-from-home. The former Chubb Re CEO is here most weeks to preside over Harbor Point, set up in Bermuda late last year after a business opportunity opened following costly Hurricane Katrina. His family have stayed behind in New Jersey, leaving him commuting back and forth to Bernardsville, where Mr. Berger was CEO of Chubb Re since 1998.

Mr. Berger?s weekly commute follows the October 25 announcement that US insurer Chubb Corp. and Stone Point Capital were sponsoring Harbor Point?s formation (see separate story in today?s business section). Harbor Point has a ?class four? licence from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, adding it to the ranks of Bermuda?s most major reinsurers who sell policies to insurers across the world.

Mr. Berger is the latest executive, in a growing list of industry veterans raised up under the tutelage of Paul Ingrey, to lead a Bermuda reinsurer. Mr. Berger worked under Mr. Ingrey, the retired former chairman of Bermuda insurance company Arch Capital Group, at F&G Re.

Prior to joining Chubb Re, Mr. Berger was one of the original members of the F&G Re team, a company he joined in 1983. In 1996, Mr. Berger was named F&G Re president and chief executive.

It was there that Mr. Berger worked with James Stanard, founder and chief executive of Bermuda reinsurer RenaissanceRe until his resignation in recent months amid a regulatory investigation into the company?s restatement of a finite risk policy bought from an affiliated reinsurer.

Andy Barile, an industry consultant based in California who said he has has known Mr. Berger for years, says Mr. Ingrey had a knack for surrounding himself with people that showed potential.

Dwight Evans, Arch Capital chief executive until he stepped down in recent months, also knows Mr. Berger from his early days working under Mr. Ingrey. He said Mr. Berger?s had a stellar career and he would expect that to continue at Harbor Point.

Mr. Berger, then 46, left F&G Re in 1998 to join Chubb as it formed its new reinsurance unit.

The moved raised a few curious eyebrows in the industry. The trend was towards consolidation, not new company formations. The cyclical reinsurance market was going through a soft phase, which generally spurs M&A activity. But Mr. Berger provided solid returns to Chubb throughout Chubb Re?s eight year history.

This time around Mr. Berger isn?t alone in starting a new reinsurer. Harbor Point is one of ten new Bermuda reinsurers that have come to market since December. And this time the move isn?t raising many eyebrows at all. Hard markets, where rates rise because of capacity being sapped from the market, generally drive company formations.

?It?s like Don Kramer. John Berger has done it before, and he has a successful track record, why would you not give him money again?? Mr. Barile says of the investors that lined up to back Harbor Point with $1.5 billion in start-up capital.

Mr. Kramer is CEO and chairman of $1 billion Ariel Reinsurance, another of the new Bermuda reinsurers in the so-called ?Class of 2005?.