NEW YORK (Bloomberg) ? The board of RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. rebuked chief executive officer James Stanard and four of his deputies for a bogus reinsurance agreement that prompted the company to restate earnings last month.

The five executives ?made mistakes and in some instances lacked due care in connection with the original accounting? for the four-year-old arrangement, the company?s independent directors said in RenaissanceRe?s annual report filed yesterday.

The incorrect accounting stemmed from a type of reinsurance under investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer and the Securities and Exchange Commission. Regulators are concerned companies are using the policies, known as non-traditional or finite reinsurance, as disguised loans to smooth earnings.

RenaissanceRe masked the true nature of its improper reinsurance arrangement in 2001 by breaking it into two parts, the company said in its annual report.

Both transactions were with Inter-Ocean Reinsurance Co., a privately owned Bermuda-based company.

Viewed together, the transactions failed to transfer risk to Inter-Ocean, according to an internal review conducted by law firm Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP for RenaissanceRe?s board.

RenaissanceRe spokesman David Lilly declined to comment. A person who answered the phone at RenaissanceRe?s Bermuda headquarters after normal business hours said all senior executives had left for the day.

Besides CEO Stanard, executives reprimanded by the board were President William I. Riker, chief financial and operating Officer John M. Lummis, senior vice president Michael W. Cash and controller Martin J. Merritt.

?The independent members of the board of directors plan to discuss their findings directly with each of the aforementioned executives,? the company said in the filing. It didn?t say what actions the board might take.

RenaissanceRe received subpoenas from the SEC and Spitzer after restating earnings through 2001 on February 22.

Correcting the faulty accounting moved profit from one year to another, with 2003 net income rising by $1.3 million, 2002 profit falling by $21.9 million and 2001 rising by $20.6 million.