Property catastrophe reinsurer, Bermuda-based Centre Cat Ltd., has advised its business partners that they expect losses of between $8 million and $12 million as a result of Hurricane Opal.

Centre Cat moved to assure the market of the company's strength. It came as the company continued to monitor a hurricane season that is still not over.

The company sent out a notice from CEO Mr. Paul Hasse, president Mr. Charles Kline and the chief underwriting officer, North America, Mr. Steven Carlsen to clients and brokers.

Hurricane Opal slammed into the Florida panhandle last week, making landfall about 25 miles east of Pensacola, Florida. By Thursday, there were initial reports indicating significant damage at the point of landfall, with widespread, but less severe, damage in Alabama and western Georgia.

The statement said: "We at Centre Cat do not make estimates of industry losses, but have made an estimate of the impact on Centre Cat.'' The company said that they had committed themselves to keeping the public advised of the firm's ongoing claims paying ability, and that timely information on their involvement in any major catastrophe can be expected.

The company assessed their possible exposure through the use of a computer modelling technique.

The statement said: "We have run our exposures through our Heuron model and expect to incur a loss. Although we cannot discuss the individual contracts of reinsurance we write, we can confirm that we have four clients who have potential for losses which could involve Centre Cat.

"Our maximum gross exposure to loss from these four clients is $35.3 million.

We do not expect all four clients to exhaust their programmes and, as you would expect so soon after an event, have not yet received any loss advises.

"Our current expectation is that we will sustain a loss net of reinstatement premium of between $8.0 million and $12 million.'' And Mr. Kline explained later: "We know within very small geographic areas exactly what exposure our clients have. And with that in hand, we can simulate the loss to us as well as they can, and perhaps better, because we invest so much in the simulation technology.

"We run thousands of simulations against our portfolio, changing the storm a little bit. We make a few `phone calls just to verify what we think we are hearing about. We check the item count and initial claims report. Then, we make an estimate.'' Mr. Kline said that it reassures clients that the company has not been hit by significant losses.

He added: "This is not the first loss for the year. We have had a small loss from the German floods, a loss from Hurricane Marilyn in the Virgin Islands in the Caribbean and a loss on the Norwegian floods.''