the cure to soft reinsurance pricing which it once was.

And excess capitalisation continues to push reinsurance prices downward, an article in the just published reinsurance supplement of Best's Review has concluded.

It found catastrophe reinsurance rates remain in a nine-year decline, and have actually fallen 2.3 percent in the past twelve months.

A survey by Paragon Reinsurance Risk Management shows the rates have fallen every six months for the past five years.

Using 1984 standard rates as a base, rates this year represent a 34 percent drop since rates peaked in July, 1994.

This trend has prompted some companies to create products to address non-traditional risk like earnings volatility.

But the bulk of business still revolves around traditional personal and commercial lines, the article said.