exactly why so many investors are rushing to invest in the hardening reinsurance market when it released its financial results for its first nine months in business.

The company reported a nine-month profit of $44.47 million, which works out at $1.137 million a week, $162,443 a day or $1.80 every second. Not a bad return by any standards.

But even this pales by comparison with the profitability of Bermuda's two large excess liability insurers ACE and EXEL.

ACE recently reported a profit of $161.2 million for the first nine months of fiscal 1993. That works out at $4.122 million a week, $588,906 a day or $6.80 a second.

EXEL's results, however, make even this gargantuan sum look like peanuts. For the first six months of the current fiscal year, EXEL made a profit of $191.487 million. For the record, that's a staggering $7.343 million a week, $1.049 million a day or $12.10 a second.

It's hardly surprising, then, that investors have been falling over themselves to pump well over $3 billion of new capital into Bermuda's insurance and reinsurance markets over the last year.

* * * BUSINESS BUC ON a far humbler note, Phoenix Stores boss Mr. Reid Young has intimated that local residents might save a few coppers due to Rupert Murdoch's decision to cut the cover price of The Sun and The Times newspapers, in Britain, by five pence (71 cents) and 15 pence (221 cents), respectively.

Although The Sun's price was slashed from 25 pence to 20 pence almost two months ago, readers in Bermuda have yet to see a corresponding drop in price.

News of The Times' price cut was only announced on Friday.

But Mr. Young said: "There are intermediaries involved so we don't know how much we will be charged for the newspapers.

"One would assume that because the cover charge has come down then the price to us will come down and so will our charge to our customers.

"If all goes according to plan, we can all look forward to a reduction in price.'' * * * SURVEY SUR A SURVEY in the United States has revealed that it will cost a family of four an average of $173.33 to attend a professional American football game this season, including tickets, hot dogs and a beer or two. That cost is 4.8 percent more than last year.

The most expensive place to take in a game is San Francisco, where a family of four will drop an average of $207 to watch the 49ers. Ticket prices there average $35.75 -- the highest in the country. It is the third year in a row San Francisco has led the pack.

The cheapest trip to a ball game is in Cincinnati, where watching the Bengals costs an average of $143.87 on the same scale.

The rock-bottom team for ticket prices, however, is the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at an average of $24.06.

While the average price of a ticket jumped by only 3.5 percent nationwide this season, items such as food and parking went up by 7.7 percent.

The average overall costs reported in the survey include tickets for four, two beers, four soft drinks, four hot dogs, two souvenir caps, two game programmes and parking for one car.

* * * CRIME CRM A FORMER US state insurance commissioner who admitted extorting $60,000 from five insurance companies that later failed has been sentenced to 41 months in prison and fined $75,000.

Sherman Bernard, 68, became the second former insurance commissioner jailed for regulatory frauds that caused a rash of insurance company failures, which may cost $1 billion to clean up.

Bernard had pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of extortion and conspiracy, saying he had wanted the money for his re-election campaign.