TheStreet.com Ratings: Reinsurers Redux

Thursday marks the official end of the 2006 hurricane season and no news is good news. The collective sigh of relief from the residents along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts is surpassed only by the clinking of champagne flutes in the inner circles of the nation's reinsurance companies.

With not a single major storm making landfall and reinsurers recording strong third-quarter profits, TheStreet.com has been adjusting its ratings accordingly. Seven domestic catastrophe reinsurers have been upgraded to a buy rating since Oct. 24. The most recent is Max Re, which was upgraded earlier this week.

Around this time last year, we had downgraded seven companies after insured losses spiked. Aon Ltd. estimates that Hurricanes Katrina, Rita and Wilma caused between $65 billion and $90 billion in insured losses.

The reinsurance industry responded by reducing capacity and hiking rates. All told, existing reinsurers reduced capacity by 30% to 50%, although new capital flowing into existing reinsurers, plus the addition of nine new players to the global market, made up the difference in all markets except in U.S. complex commercial properties, according to Aon. Rates in this U.S. line increased as much as 150%. Even in the other U.S. lines where capacity remained stable or actually increased, however, rates went up by 30% to 100%.