Bermuda's six major public insurers are all banking on healthy business growth in the current market, despite some taking a hit on the investment income side.

The six companies - ACE, IPC Re, Partner Re, Max Re, RenRe and XL - each gave in-detail presentations to more than 150 analysts on the financial state of their companies at this week's annual Bermuda Angle conference.

XL said its growth to date in gross premiums written, and based on figures for the June 30, 2001 to June, 30 2002 period was overall, 182 percent.

But the company also pointed out that it was not growing for growing sake, but taking on business selectively. To that end, XL said it was “continually non-renewing (business) that failed to hit return parameters” and having already turned down $200 million in business in the North American market.

Partner Re also showed solid growth in its premium business. Breaking the growth down by lines the company showed 33 and 51 percent growth in property and catastrophe respectively, for the year period from June 30, 2001 to end of June 2002. The company's other lines showed even greater growth in business with aviation at 85 percent up to 148 percent growth for energy/engineering.

CEO Patrick Thiele said the company was on a roll with estimates of 20 to 30 percent growth in its third year of “solid digit growth”. In total, this year, he said Partner Re was likely to add $500 million in premiums, which would be its ceiling taking into account infrastructure limitations.

Max Re, which has announced a shift to more traditional insurance products over investment instruments, also announced that premium volume was growing. Compared to last year, when the company wrote only structured life and structured p&c, the company has scaled back - year-to-date - in those sectors but through June 30 had already written healthy amounts of alternative risk transfer (ART) business and traditional insurance.

The company reported that its half-year business stood at $514.1 million compared to $806.7 million for the 2001 year and $409.7 million in 2000.

ACE Ltd. with its report that it predicts net premium growth for the balance of 2002 to be in the 40 percent range. In total, CFO Phil Bancroft told analysts ACE expected net premium growth of around 30 percent for 2002.

IPC Re, which is one of the few remaining pure property catastrophe reinsurers, said sticking to its original business model from the time it set up, continued to serve the company well in the current market. CFO John Weale showed that gross premiums written of $207.2 million, in the first half of 2002 alone, far exceeded the business written for the whole of 2001 at $133.1 million.

RenRe charted out for analysts what it called “dramatic” increases in business through the 2002 hardening market. Breaking this down by segments, RenRe said it estimated managed Cat premium growth - which accounted for the bulk of the business the company was writing - to be in the range of 55 percent growth for 2002, specialty insurance growth was an impressive 200 percent while individual risk was seeing growth for the year of an estimated 400 percent.

The current insurance market was already ripe with opportunity after September 11 and a void in capacity that led to what the industry cited as much needed price increases, but this week even greater opportunities were cited as appearing on the horizon. Overall the consensus on an increasingly hardening market timeline was into next year, and quite possibly 2004.

And companies appeared poised to take advantage of increased business opportunities as some insurers - especially in Europe - flounder or fail while other companies are reaching capital thresholds that limit their ability to take on any more business.

XL, in their presentation, said: “We have benefited from the uncertainty surrounding some of our competitors...and that this was THE (sic) time to exploit our strengths and market position.”

ACE also pointed to an advantage over some competitors who either had “limited ability to grow” or were “exiting specialty lines”.

IPC spoke of the potential for further hardening in the market with “turmoil in Europe and elsewhere” as evidenced by the “for sale signs in some (insurers) windows” and “significant decline (in) capital due to huge investments in equities”.

The news of growth was a welcome ticket for analysts also hearing from some insurers that results could be offset by investment income was poised to come in below expectations, and could be “flat to down” for some time to come.

Meanwhile, some insurers also had reports to give analysts on WTC claims - which was the big issue at last year's Angle conference.

Max Re said it had a “very small WTC loss” posting a $3 million net loss “that 14 months out is looking nicely conservative,” said CEO Robert Cooney.

ACE CEO Brian Duperreault said pay-out on claims had been slower than expected with about 25 percent paid so far. But the company also said it had, to date, successfully recovered most - all but $23 million - of the its reinsurance recoverables. Mr. Duperreault said claims payments from the disaster could stretch into next year but expected cash flow would remain good, barring major catastrophes.

IPC Re reported it had been able to pay its WTC claims straight out of its cash flow.