Reinsurance rates have increased more than 30 percent in New Zealand and Australia, where natural disasters caused huge losses earlier this year, according to a Flagstone Re executive.However Guy Swayne, Flagstone’s Bermuda-based chief underwriting officer, international, added that the industry was not seeing the across-the-board, substantial increases of the sort that followed Hurricane Katrina in 2005.“With the high level of international catastrophe losses over the past 15 months, specifically over the last five months, we are seeing an increase in rates on the international property catastrophe business,” Mr Swayne said.“From a reinsurance point of view, we have seen very positive action in pricing and encouraging increases in prices from a range of geographies and lines.“Not only have we had natural catastrophes in Australia, New Zealand and Japan, but there was also Chile last year, and international reinsurers are all saying the same thing: that prices are rising.”Like many reinsurers, Flagstone was hit hard by this year’s string of catastrophes and posted a first-quarter net loss of $161.2 million. Its share price, which closed at $7.96 on Friday, is down 36 percent this year.Flagstone has seen rate rises in April 1 renewals and expects more rises in June and July business.Rates were up by more than 30 percent in Australia and New Zealand, some programmes were up by three to four percent in Europe, while wind coverage in Japan was up five to 10 percent at April 1.Some excess-of-loss earthquake programmes in Japan had been renewed with rate rises of 30 to 50 percent. More similar programmes will be up for renewal in May and prices are expected to rise between 50 percent and 100 percent, he added.Flagstone was a Bermuda ‘Class of 2005’ start-up, established as reinsurance demand and prices soared in the wake of hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma.“The broker community is a bit split on pricing some are saying the recent events are not going to be market-changing, and it is true what we are seeing is not a ‘Katrina’, where immediately prices rose 25 percent or more,” Mr Swayne said.“What we are seeing is, in the regions affected, prices are going up significantly, and then there is also a general trend of rising prices. In reality, the proof is when you see renewal prices, but we have seen rate increases.”There are other factors beside this year’s catastrophes putting upward pressure on pricing, Mr Swayne added, including the new hurricane model launched earlier this year by catastrophe modellers Risk Management Solutions, the RMS 11.“RMS 11 is having a material effect on the US market,” he said. “At April 1, we saw a dozen programmes come back to be re-priced. For June and July renewals, we are seeing a number of companies having to buy more cover.“In these lines, originally we thought that pricing was going to be off slightly, and at April 1 it was repriced upwards. Later in the year I think we may see a further increase. That said, we may be surprised and see more price rises.“The US dollar is not performing very well. It is hard to quantify the effect as yet, but there is an impact.“If the US dollar remains weak, then this can have a limiting effect as many reinsurers measure their aggregates and PMLs [probable maximum loss] in US dollars.“Reinsurance price increases, however, are not even and pricing has been mixed.”Flagstone moved its corporate domicile to Luxembourg last year but still maintains a substantial underwriting platform on the Island and its CEO David Brown continues to be based here.