The Company is a holding company incorporated in the state of Delaware. Originally formed in 1986 under the name PREINCO Holdings, Inc. as a holding company for Putnam Reinsurance Company ("Putnam"), the Company's name was changed to Transatlantic Holdings, Inc. on April 18, 1990 following the acquisition on April 17, 1990 of all of the common stock of Transatlantic Reinsurance Company® ("TRC") in exchange for shares of common stock of the Company (the "Share Exchange"). Prior to the Share Exchange, American International Group, Inc. ("AIG", and collectively, with its subsidiaries, the "AIG Group") held a direct and indirect interest of approximately 25% in the Company and an indirect interest of 49.99% in TRC. As a result of the Share Exchange, AIG became the beneficial owner of approximately 41% of the Company's outstanding common stock and TRC became a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company. In June 1990, certain stockholders of the Company (other than AIG) sold shares of the Company's common stock in a public offering. Prior to June 10, 2009 and as of December 31, 2008 and 2007, AIG beneficially owned approximately 59% of the Company's outstanding shares. On June 10, 2009, AIG and American Home Assurance Company ("AHAC"), a wholly owned subsidiary of AIG, consummated a secondary public offering (the "Offering") of 29.9 million issued and outstanding shares of the Company owned by AIG and AHAC. TRH did not receive any proceeds from the Offering. According to the Form 13F filed on February 18, 2010 by AIG, as of December 31, 2009, the AIG Group had sole voting authority over 9.2 million shares of the Company's common stock, representing approximately 13.8% of the Company's outstanding shares as of December 31, 2009.
The Company, through its wholly-owned subsidiaries, TRC, Trans Re Zurich ("TRZ"), acquired by TRC in 1996, and Putnam (contributed by the Company to TRC in 1995), offers reinsurance capacity for a full range of property and casualty products, directly and through brokers, to insurance and reinsurance companies, in both the domestic and international markets on both a treaty and facultative basis. One or both of TRC and Putnam is licensed, accredited, authorized or can serve as a reinsurer in 50 states and the District of Columbia in the United States and in Puerto Rico and Guam. Through its international locations, TRH has operations worldwide, including Canada, six countries in Europe, three countries in Central and South America, one country in Africa, one country in Asia (excluding Japan), Japan and Australia. TRC is licensed in Canada, Japan, the United Kingdom, the Dominican Republic, the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region, the People's Republic of China and Australia. TRC is an Admitted Reinsurer in Brazil, where it maintains an office in Rio de Janeiro. In addition, TRC is registered and authorized as a foreign reinsurer in Argentina (where it maintains a representative office in Buenos Aires, Transatlantic Re (Argentina) S.A.), the Republic of Panama (where it maintains a representative office, TRC (PANAMÁ) S.A.), Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, El Salvador, France, Germany, Guatemala, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay and Venezuela, and is authorized to maintain a representative office in Shanghai, the People's Republic of China. TRZ is licensed as a reinsurer in Switzerland and registered in Paraguay, Ecuador, Argentina, Honduras, El Salvador, the Dominican Republic and Colombia. Transatlantic Polska Sp. z o.o., a subsidiary of TRC, maintains a registered representative office in Warsaw, Poland.
The Reinsurance Business
Reinsurance is an arrangement whereby one or more companies, the reinsurer(s), agrees to indemnify another insurance or reinsurance company, the ceding company, for all or part of the insurance risks underwritten by the ceding company. Reinsurance can provide certain basic benefits to the ceding company. It reduces net liability on individual risks, thereby enabling the ceding company to underwrite more business than its own resources can support and it provides catastrophe protection to lessen the impact of large or multiple losses.
TRH offers two types of reinsurance based on the underlying insurance coverage:
Casualty. Casualty insurance protects the insured against financial loss arising out of its obligation to others for loss or damage to their person or property. Casualty reinsurance protects the ceding company against loss to the extent of the reinsurance coverage provided. TRH's principal lines of casualty reinsurance include other liability (including directors' and officers' liability ("D&O"), errors and omissions liability ("E&O") and general casualty), medical malpractice, ocean marine and aviation, auto liability (including non-standard risks), accident and health ("A&H") and surety and credit.
Casualty insurance can be written on a claims-made or an occurrence basis. Claims-made policies generally provide coverage for claims made during the policy period regardless of when the act causing the claim occurred. Occurrence policies generally provide coverage in perpetuity for acts committed during the policy period regardless of when the claim is made. Depending on the nature of the business and statute of limitations, the final claims costs for occurrence business can take many years to be definitively known given that new claims can come in at any time and the cost of existing claims may continue to change over time. Claims-made business, while also taking a significant time to finalize claims costs, due to the development of open claims, generally has a shorter period for completion as the number of claims is known shortly after the policy expires.
Casualty business as a whole is volatile in that the ultimate claims costs for a policy or portfolio are not known for a significant amount of time. Reasons for this are the complexity of liability theory, the occurrence nature of some coverages, the potential for litigation, adverse court rulings, unpredictable claims and social inflation trends and reporting lag time between cedants and reinsurers.
Property. Property insurance protects the insured against financial loss arising out of the loss of property or its use caused by an insured peril. Property reinsurance protects the ceding company against loss to the extent of the reinsurance coverage provided. TRH's principal lines of property reinsurance include fire, allied lines, auto physical damage and homeowners multiple peril.
Property reinsurance is written on an occurrence basis, but, because the loss is generally immediate and manifest, claims are adjusted and closed in a much shorter period than casualty business. However, due to the unpredictable nature of fires, hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural or man-made catastrophic events as well as the imperfect models that exist in measuring the probability and potential magnitude of costs from these events, there is a great deal of volatility in property reinsurance as well.
TRH writes reinsurance either through treaty or facultative reinsurance arrangements:
Treaty. Treaty reinsurance is a contractual arrangement that provides for the automatic reinsuring of a type or category of risk underwritten by the ceding company.
Facultative. Facultative reinsurance is the reinsurance of individual risks. Rather than agreeing to reinsure all or a portion of a class of risk, the reinsurer separately rates and underwrites each risk. Facultative reinsurance is normally purchased for risks not covered by treaty reinsurance or for individual risks covered by reinsurance treaties that are in need of capacity beyond that provided by such treaties.
TRH provides reinsurance for most major lines of insurance on both pro rata and excess-of-loss bases. A ceding company's reinsurance program may involve pro rata and excess-of-loss reinsurance on both a treaty and facultative basis:
Pro rata. Under pro rata reinsurance (also referred to as proportional), the ceding company and the reinsurer share the premiums as well as the losses and expenses in an agreed proportion. As pro rata business is a proportional sharing of premiums and losses between ceding company and reinsurer, generally, the underwriting results of such business more closely reflect the underwriting results of the business ceded than do the results of excess-of-loss business. In pro rata reinsurance, the reinsurer generally pays the ceding company a ceding commission. Generally, the ceding commission is based on the ceding company's cost of obtaining the business being reinsured (i.e., brokers' and agents' commissions, local taxes and administrative expenses).
Excess-of-Loss. Under excess-of-loss reinsurance, the reinsurer agrees to reimburse the ceding company for all losses in excess of a predetermined amount up to a predetermined limit. Premiums paid by the ceding company to the reinsurer for excess-of-loss coverage are generally not proportional to the premiums that the ceding company receives because the reinsurer does not assume a proportionate risk. Often there is no ceding commission on excess-of-loss reinsurance and therefore the pricing mechanism used by reinsurers in those instances is a rate applicable to premiums of the individual policy or policies subject to the reinsurance agreement.
Operations
TRH's activities in the United States are conducted through its worldwide headquarters in New York, NY, its branch in Miami, FL and offices in Chicago, IL, Overland Park, KS, San Francisco, CA, Columbus, OH and Stamford, CT. All domestic treaty and facultative business is underwritten by, or under the supervision of, senior officers of TRH located in New York. TRH's headquarters in New York and offices in Miami, Rio de Janeiro, Toronto, London, Paris, Zurich, Hong Kong, Tokyo and Sydney offer treaty as well as facultative reinsurance. In addition, TRH operates representative offices in Buenos Aires, Panama, Warsaw, Munich and Shanghai, and maintains exclusive representative arrangements with MS Upson Associates c.c. in Johannesburg, South Africa and with NOBARE in Stockholm, Sweden. On January 2, 2009, TRH's arrangement with Momentum Underwriting Management, Ltd. ("Momentum Underwriting") in London, England, in which Momentum Underwriting had the underwriting authority to bind TRH, pursuant to strict underwriting guidelines, lapsed and was not renewed by TRH. Momentum Underwriting no longer has underwriting authority on behalf of TRH. The termination of this arrangement did not affect business previously bound by Momentum Underwriting on behalf of TRH before the termination of this arrangement. TRH also operates Professional Risk Management Services, Inc. ("PRMS"), a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Company. Based in Arlington, VA, PRMS is an insurance program manager specializing in professional liability insurance services, including underwriting, claims and risk management, for individual healthcare providers, group practices, facilities and organizations.
TRH reinsures risks from a broad spectrum of industries throughout the United States and foreign countries. Business underwritten by all branches located outside the United States and by the Miami branch (which underwrites business in Latin America and the Caribbean) accounted for approximately 49%, 50% and 51% of worldwide net premiums written in 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. (See Management's Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations ("MD&A") for a discussion of premium fluctuations between years, Regulation for a discussion of certain conditions associated with international business and Note 17 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements for financial data by business segment.)
Gross premiums written of approximately $263 million (6.3%), $310 million (7.0%) and $307 million (7.2%) in 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively, were originated by the AIG Group and ceded to TRH. These amounts exclude (a) premiums assumed that initially were insured by AIG subsidiaries as a result of TRH's marketing efforts and then ceded to TRH by prearrangement; and (b) amounts assumed from an AIG subsidiary and ceded in an equal amount to other AIG subsidiaries. The amount of premiums assumed that initially were insured by AIG subsidiaries as a result of TRH's marketing efforts and then ceded to TRH by prearrangement are not material. (See Note 16 of Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements ("Note 16") for the amount of premiums assumed from an AIG subsidiary and ceded in an equal amount to other AIG subsidiaries.) (See Relationship with the AIG Group.)
In addition, TRH holds a 40% interest in Kuwait Reinsurance Company (K.S.C.) ("Kuwait Re"), acquired in 2000, which has a balance sheet carrying value of $44.2 million and $51.4 million at December 31, 2009 and 2008, respectively. Kuwait Re provides property, casualty and life reinsurance products to clients in Middle Eastern and North African markets.
TRC and Putnam have a quota share reinsurance agreement where TRC cedes 5% of its assumed reinsurance, net of other retrocessions, to Putnam. Presently all of Putnam's business is assumed from TRC pursuant to this quota share reinsurance agreement. This agreement was entered into for operational reasons and had no impact on TRH's consolidated financial position or results of operations.
Property and Casualty Lines of Business
Casualty reinsurance constitutes the larger portion of TRH's business, accounting for 71% of net premiums written in 2009, 70% in 2008 and 71% in 2007.
Operating results in 2009, 2008 and 2007 included pre-tax net catastrophe costs of ($6) million, $170 million and $55 million, respectively. (See MD&A.)
In general, the overall operating results (including investment performance) and other changes to stockholders' equity of property and casualty insurance and reinsurance companies, and TRH, in particular, are subject to significant fluctuations due to competition, natural and man-made catastrophic events, general economic and social conditions, financial, credit and industry market conditions, foreign currency exchange rate fluctuations, interest rates, operating performance and prospects of investee companies and other factors, such as changes in tax laws, tort laws and the regulatory environment.
Treaty and Facultative Reinsurance
Treaty reinsurance constitutes the great majority of TRH's business, accounting for 97%, 97% and 96% of net premiums written in 2009, 2008 and 2007, respectively. Facultative reinsurance comprises the balance of net premiums written.
Treaty Reinsurance
Treaty reinsurance accounted for approximately $3.95 billion of gross premiums written and $3.87 billion of net premiums written in 2009. Approximately 72% of treaty net premiums written resulted from casualty lines treaties, with the remainder from property lines treaties. Approximately 70% of total treaty gross premiums written in 2009 represented treaty reinsurance written on a pro rata basis and the balance represented treaty reinsurance written on an excess-of-loss basis. Treaty business written by TRH's international operations accounted for approximately 47% of TRH's total net premiums written for the year ended December 31, 2009.
TRH's treaty business consists primarily of business within the other liability (including D&O and E&O), A&H, medical malpractice, ocean marine and aviation, auto liability (including non-standard risks), surety and credit, fire, allied lines, auto physical damage and homeowners multiple peril lines.