LONDON (AM BestWire) - Lancashire Holdings Ltd., a Bermuda-domiciled insurer and reinsurer that was formed at the end of 2005 after the devastating hurricanes of that year, has joined the FTSE 250 Index of Britain's 250 largest listed companies.

Richard Brindle, group chief executive officer, described the move as "an exciting milestone".

Lancashire Holdings, which is now listed on the London Stock Exchange, was originally listed on the exchange's Alternative Investment Market. The AIM "has served us very well," Brindle said.

The formation of Lancashire Holdings came during "a tremendous time in the back of a great hardening and rallying of rates," Brindle said.

Brindle described Lancashire as a short-tail speciality insurer that writes "a little bit of reinsurance".

It is active in the marine, aviation and energy markets, he said.

The strategic goal is to create a franchise, he said. "We've had three successful years," Brindle said.

"We've made money every year. We actually made money last year when most people didn't."

Lancashire Holdings had a 2008 pretax profit of $97.6 million (76.3 million euros), down from $391.9 million in 2007. The company said the drop in profits came against "a backdrop of significant industry losses and dramatic investment market turmoil".

The move onto the FTSE 250 was "not a seismic event," Brindle said. "But it's an incremental event. Part of our story is just getting people to realise that we"re creating something for the long term here."

Lancashire, he said, will, for instance, write business through the cycle rather than entering and leaving markets. In addition to bringing a higher profile, Brindle said, inclusion in the list will mean that Lancashire will be picked up by index funds and tracker funds that are obliged to own every FTSE 250 stock.

"All other things being equal, I see another couple of solid trading years under our belt," Brindle said. He looks for improvement after what he described as the disappointing rating result of the first quarter of 2009.

Brindle looks to compete against other Lloyd's insurers. "Whilst we are a Bermudian company", he said, "we are really de facto very much a London market operation these days." He has high expectations for Gulf of Mexico energy, given the effects of Hurricane Ike.

But Brindle notes the recession had made it impossible for a lot of companies to buy insurance. This, he said, has cut into the size of Lancashire's portfolio.

"Property-cat has picked up very well in the last three months," Brindle said. "We saw quite a number of opportunities for Florida at first of June, and at [July 1] we saw a number of opportunities in the Northeast wind and Calquake [California earthquake] arenas."

The overall underwriting cycle is "still hardening, but slowly", Brindle said. He said the market did not anticipate the rate at which insurance demand would be negatively affected by the recession.

Reinsurance demand is good, driven as it is, Brindle said, by such things as solvency pressures, balance sheet issues and scrutiny from rating agencies.