Then came “the sequels”–a term he used to describe carriers formed by individuals who had left the “ill carriers,” started up new operations and tapped into the market share of those troubled competitors.

“Reinsurers gave them capacity” as well, he said, “albeit at more punitive terms. But the bottom line is it extended the soft market, in my opinion.”

He noted that the carriers that were in trouble actually maintained their capacity, operating “without any hiccups” other than those caused by buyers' perceptions.

“An influx of capacity came in at a time when we probably, for all intents and purposes, should have had a [market] turn. But we allowed ourselves to put a flurry of new players into the market,” he said.

If you define discipline narrowly–to refer to actions such as lowering ceding commissions and imposing loss ratio caps–then there was discipline, he said.

Opting for a broader definition, however, Mr. Venuto said that when new carriers enter the market, “they have to take business from [reinsurers'] existing clients”–and to take it from the existing primary carriers, they have to price the business lower.

Mr. Venuto launched into what he described as his “diatribe on discipline” after the session's moderator, Michael Angelina, chief risk officer and chief actuary of Bermuda-based Endurance Specialty Holdings, expressed the more popular view.

From Mr. Angelina's vantage point, working for a company that both buys and sells reinsurance, he said he is witnessing “incredible discipline” from the reinsurance market.

“We've seen things like rejections of worldwide covers. We've seen the reinsurance community push back on multiyear deals,” Mr. Angelina said, supporting his view that typical “signs of the Apocalypse”–in other words, indications of undisciplined competitive activity–are not evident in the reinsurance market.

Both men joined Damien Magarelli, a director with Standard & Poor's in New York, in predicting that current levels of flat-to-down reinsurance renewal pricing will not be impacted by recent catastrophes.

The earthquake in Chile will likely be the second-largest earthquake event on the overall quake loss list behind the Northridge earthquake, but the Chilean quake's $8-to-$10 billion loss “will not be a catalyst for increasing property rates globally,” Mr. Magarelli said.

Instead, he predicted that any price hikes would be confined to programs specifically impacted by that quake.

Similarly, events such as recent floods in the Northeast, bringing $500 million-to-$1.5 billion in losses to regional carriers, “are still really earnings events” to a limited group of carriers, he said, contrasting them with capital events that would be dramatic enough to change a pricing cycle.

Even the Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion, which could produce $1.5 billion in property losses and additional losses related to the cleanup, will be borne by specific carriers. “It's not going to be a huge [property] loss for the industry,” he said.

“Most of the catastrophe losses are still within overall budgets,” Mr. Magarelli said. “We have not seen companies revising earnings estimates.”