"A year ago, our new CEO, Jay Fishman, and our management team had completed a full strategic review of our operations and decided to withdraw from reinsurance underwriting business," said Patrick Hirigoyen, spokesperson for the St. Paul Companies in St. Paul, Minn.

"The reason is that results of reinsurance operations can be more volatile than commercial insurance operations. Reinsurance was deemed not a good fit for us since we wanted more predictable earnings for our company. Several other companies in the marketplace have also made similar decisions," Mr. Hirigoyen said.

Last month, the company said it had completed the transfer of its ongoing reinsurance business and operations to a new reinsurer, Bermuda-based Platinum Underwriters Holdings, which was spun-off through an initial public offering.

As part of that IPO, the St. Paul retained the reserves related to liabilities for reinsurance business written prior to Jan. 1, 2002. Gross premium reserves for those liabilities total an estimated $4.2 billion, and the runoff of those liabilities will be managed from offices in New York and London.

"Those liabilities will be retained by the St. Paul. In other words, Platinum is starting with a clean slate--no old liabilities. We are not underwriting any more new reinsurance. But we still have those old liabilities, and those involve complicated runoff operations," Mr. Hirigoyen said.

The runoff operations in New York will include 60 employees, and the London runoff operations will involve more than 100 employees of St. Paul Re in the U.K.