Bermuda's newest reinsurers have been cited by at least one of their US-based peers for precipitating a downturn in pricing with rates across re/insurance lines levelling out or declining.

CEO of General Re Corp. Joseph Brandon was speaking at Standard & Poor's Insurance 2004 Seminar in New York last week.

The annual event, which draws CEOs from the world's leading re/insurance corporations, saw the top executives debate the current issues facing the industry during more than 30 sessions.

Mr. Brandon's comments were made during a panel discussion focusing on the Bermuda market and the impact on the industry by new players after a wave of reinsurers set up on the Island to take advantage of rising prices after a void in capacity following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

He said that the level of capital that had gone to support these ventures had served to "temper both the peak of the cycle and the duration".

But some of those behind those new Bermuda companies participating in the panel discussion claimed the newly capitalised companies had served to revitalise the market when it was much needed.

Besides Mr. Brandon, participants were Stephen Searby, director of Standard & Poor's rating services; John Charman, deputy chairman, president and CEO of AXIS Capital Holdings and PartnerRe president and CEO Patrick Thiele. Mr. Charman said: "Considering the paralysis within the global financial markets in the aftermath of the World Trade Center tragedy, it's a great tribute to Bermuda that something like $10 billion of unencumbered capital was raised in three months."

Although a veteran of the historic Lloyd's of London market, Mr. Charman could be said to be one of the new players with AXIS setting up in Bermuda in late 2001.

However, in the two years since, the company has grown into a global powerhouse with offices on both sides of the Atlantic and business levels to rival many long-established companies.

Mr. Charman added, in praise of the Island's re/insurance market: "Bermuda has really established in 15 years what it took the London market 300 years to establish."

AXIS itself raised more than $2 billion in a little over two weeks, according to Mr. Charman, who told the audience: "Within six weeks, we were sitting in Bermuda, fully licensed and ready to go."

But it is the intellectual capital brought to the island, not just the financial capital, Mr. Charman stressed

"The Bermuda startups are very professional and very disciplined," he said, adding they were a timely solution for a global reinsurance industry that has a history of "destroying capital" and that was "on its knees" in 1999.

In response to his comments, Mr. Brandon, CEO of long-established General Re Corp., expressed concerns about the effect new Bermuda companies have had on global reinsurance pricing.

"With that amount of capital flowing into the business in a short amount of time, clearly it has tempered both the peak of the cycle and the duration," he said.

Mr. Brandon also argued that the more established players have "a huge advantage by not having an exit strategy. We're going to be there in 2050."

Mr. Thiele, as the head of an established Bermuda company, with PartnerRe having been in business more than a decade now, said the real test is how the Bermuda startups will do as prices start to ease.

"Never confuse a bull market with genius," he reportedly told the group.

"It takes a few years to see distinctions emerge between companies," Mr. Thiele concluded.