The finite risk reinsurer set up on the Island at the start of the year, and opened a European contact office in Dublin.

Luc Gagnon has been appointed to head the office, which is called Max Re Europe.

The office will do no underwriting, but Max Re's founder, chairman, president and chief executive, Bob Cooney, said: "In time we could have a capitalised entity in Europe.'' Max Re was set up last year as the brainchild of Mr. Cooney, the former XL Insurance guru. Within a few months the business has already raised hundreds of millions of dollars.

In January Max Re was ranked as having excellent A minus financial strength by one of the world's top investment ratings services, A.M. Best.

The rating assignment followed the completion of an initial private offering by the insurer's parent organisation, Maximus Capital Holdings, Ltd., Bermuda, which raised $331 million.

Max Re had been working on getting funding to start the business since Mr.

Cooney left XL Insurance last July to set up the new company. In October he was joined by Mr. Brining and together they have been making the financial future for the company secure.

They now have 15 staff in Bermuda and now have the office in Dublin. They currently have a new Dublin manager, and will be staffing this up to cater for the European market.

Max Re's operating activities focus on traditional, finite and specialty risk reinsurance of long-tailed liabilities that carry relatively predictable payout patterns -- such as annuities, structured settlements, life insurance, disability income, workers' compensation and medical malpractice insurance.

In May at the Risk & Insurance Managers Society conference in San Francisco Mr. Cooney and his colleagues secured a potential $20 million worth of business.

He and his team attended 100 meetings during the week long event with prospective clients.

Mr. Cooney said that in the first year the company was well on line to exceed the predicted $350 million premiums.