Market Briefing yesterday that Bermuda will remain sensitive to the needs of insurers.

And among growing optimism about the Island's international insurance sector, former top broker Mr. Richard Meyer said Bermuda had become a fully rounded global marketplace for insurance.

Described by Bermuda Insurance Institute president, Mr. Glen Gibbons, as one of Bermuda's best known businessmen, the Premier described insurance as a growing industry for Bermuda.

"We in Bermuda sit here and we always have to think international,'' he said.

"We cannot think other than international. The reason is very simple. If you go to look further than a mile and a half either side (of the Island), you're in the water, you drown.

"So since you cannot do something physically, you have to be able to have your mind do it intellectually. So when we think, we actually don't think in physical terms. We think in intellectual terms of what's going on around the world itself.

"That's what causes us to be sensitive to your clients and yourselves, and what your requirements are. Because we can actually visualise what's taking place, whether it is in New York, London, Tokyo or whatever market it is taking place.'' The Premier said that business people who domiciled here eventually end up thinking in the same way, taking advantage of Bermuda's telecommunications systems to "extend our intelligence for the first time beyond ourselves''.

Mr. Meyer, a retired executive vice president of Johnson & Higgins, vice chairman of New York's College of Insurance and a board member of Global Capital Re, described how the local market outlived its critics of the 1970s, who had said Bermuda, as an insurance market, would never last.

"A number of Bermuda critics said the Bermuda market was dead,'' he said of the period when a number of captives went spectacularly bankrupt. "But Bermuda bounced back with new companies and new capital.'' He talked about the growing lines of business, as Bermuda moved from captive insurers to more emphasis on other lines.

He said the Bermuda market is being used by global buyers, not just buyers from the US.

"It has become one-stop shopping for their risk transfer needs, or risk funding needs,'' he said. "Bermuda has recently made it off the pages of Business Insurance and the National Underwriter, and into Forbes Magazine (Nov. 7). That is a sign of a real development.'' Mr. Meyer said the huge capital base of insurance in Bermuda, as compared by Forbes to the US insurance hot-bed in around Hartford, Connecticut "leads me to strongly insist that Bermuda stop referring to itself as an alternative market. It is the market, absolutely, no doubt about it.

"Bermuda can compete and co-exist with New York, with Hartford, with London and do very well.'' He said the problems the Island faces include the worries about its infrastructure and if it can sustain growth. He said it is no problem, agreeing with the Premier about the continuing emphasis on education here.

He remained unconcerned about the US Internal Revenue Service (IRS) keeping an eye on the local market and said that while Bermuda faced the possibility of attempts at regulation by the US National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), Bermuda liaised well with the group of state regulators.

He also dismissed concerns about Bermuda's regulatory environment by pointing to new legislation on the way.

And he brushed aside the rumoured `health warning' from the UK Department of Trade & Industry (DTI) about Bermuda early this year as a minor point.

He said the DTI should have realised that the Bermuda Fire & Marine difficulty resulted from the London-based Weavers stamp which the DTI was supposed to be regulating.

He also dismissed a US attorney's attack on Bermuda insurers' claims-paying practices as unwarranted and said the Bermuda market will prevail against the critics.

The Hon. Sir John Swan