excess of loss reinsurance in Bermuda, after a sister London company yesterday confirmed that it had placed one of the largest single blocks of alternative occupational accident business in the US market.

Stirling (Bermuda) and specialist Lloyd's broker, Stirling Cooke Insurance Brokers Ltd., which placed the quota share reinsurance of a $108 million-premium income account for Guarantee Mutual Life Insurance Company Ltd., are both subsidiaries of Stirling Cooke Holdings Ltd.

Chief executive, Mr. Mark Cooke, said yesterday that the prime US account underlined his company's leadership in the specialist US workers' compensation and occupational accident sector of the insurance market. Stirling Cooke is London's leading workers' comp and occupational accident broker.

Stirling Cooke has placed the coverage in London, the US and in other markets and Mr. Cooke said that some of the excess of loss reinsurance would be offered in the Bermuda market.

The Guarantee Mutual Life account is one of the largest of its kind in the US market, covering the states of Georgia, Alabama and Louisiana.

The Bermuda office is growing, said Mr. Cooke. It was set up in 1992, the same year the UK company obtained full Lloyd's status.

"Bermuda is becoming a very important office for us. We just set up a captive management company there called Stirling Cooke Captive Management Ltd.

"We're the largest alternative compensation and workers compensation broker in London and most probably in the top five in the US. We handle something in the region of $300 million in premium a year.

"Bermuda is becoming more important to us because more and more of the capacity is starting to set up in Bermuda. As opposed to the London market, Stirling Cooke group placed four years ago nearly 80 percent of its business in Lloyd's, and that's now probably down to about 35-40 percent of the business in Lloyd's and the rest of it came to the US and Bermuda.

"Bermuda has become a major factor in the alternative comp market.'' Mr. Cooke said that the alternative occupational accident insurance market in the US has emerged into the mainstream over the last five years, as the traditional workers' compensation market "has crumbled in state after state''.

He said that the traditional comp market has in many states been characterised over the last ten years by "runaway claims costs and endemic inefficiency, which have led to massive deficits.'' Insurers, he continued, have traditionally passed all these costs on to the employers (policy-holders) in the form of ever-increasing premiums, and in some cases, this has forced companies to re-locate in different states or face going out of business.

Skyrocketing workers' compensation premiums have forced policyholders to look for alternative overages and have encouraged innovation in the marketplace.

Mr. Cooke said Stirling Cooke is at the forefront of providing markets, offering new products to allow employers to be more cost-effective in the provision of benefits to employees suffering injuries at work.

In April, Stirling Cooke won the prestigious Queen's Award for Export Achievement.