GREENLIGHT RE BOSS HEDGES SEES "IRRATIONAL" INSURANCE DEALS IN FLORIDA

Bart Hedges, the boss of Greenlight Capital Re, has said that there is currently so much competition in Florida amongst reinsurers that some were writing deals with terms and conditions that he considered "irrational". Cayman Islands-based Greenlight Capital Re is the reinsurance business of hedge fund boss David Einhorn. In a conference call with analysts reported by Reuters, Mr Hedges said that some reinsurers had written contracts with no loss limits for sinkhole claims, which over the past few years have become an area where householders have made more and more claims. Because of this irrationality, Mr Hedges said that Greenlight Capital Re had written no new business in Florida in Q2 and reduced its existing book of business. Mr Einhorn said that underperformance in some of the reinsurer's long-term investments had hit the Q2 bottom line. But he noted that the investment portfolio was up by 2% in July.