During a question and answer period, Shannon Totten, vice president at Endurance Specialty, said that there could be some fallout from the contingency fee investigation, but what form that would take remains unclear.

Endurance, whose major brokerage business comes from Marsh and Aon, could see some problems on renewal business, but even more of a concern will be new business that could go elsewhere if clients move business to other brokers.

"We plan to hit the pavement hard," Ms. Totten said, as renewals come around.

Marsh's parent company, Marsh & McLennan, was sued by New York's Attorney General Eliot Spitzer over charges of bid-rigging and steering insurance contracts to insurers with high paying contingency fee arrangements. Aon is under investigation by Mr. Spitzer.

Matthew Meyer, vice president/general casualty manager with Allied World Assurance Company, said that questions could always arise over the steering of business toward profitable commissions. He said he did not have an answer on how to prevent that from happening.

Lars Bergquist, executive vice president at Risk Specialists Co., Ltd., said his firm does not pay contingency fees and did not know what affect the probe would have.

Both Risk Specialists and Allied World Assurance are Bermuda insurers created after the Sept. 11 terrorist attack in response to capacity issues the industry feared could envelop it as the industry dealt with the volume of claims, the executives said. The creation of these carriers involved substantial investments from Marsh and Aon, they added.

Ms. Totten said that if brokers were unable to make investments in new companies after another catastrophic event, she was confident there would be enough investors available to create new capacity.

Both Ms. Totten and Mr. Meyer said that Bermuda would continue to offer terrorism coverage, as it has in the past, should the U.S. not renew the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act for 2005.

On the question of premium pricing, Ms. Totten said pricing remains flat with some increases depending on the specific line of business.