today at the Lantana Colony Club.

The Association held its first annual conference here some 20 years ago, and since then has met in various parts of the world. This year, as many as 100 members of the RAA will visit Bermuda for the conference. A reception has been organised in their honour by the Bermuda insurance industry.

The RAA, based in Washington, D.C., is a non-profit trade association, charged with monitoring and furthering its members' interests and providing reinsurance education at the highest level.

Although its meetings are not open to the general public, the choice of Bermuda as the site of the organisation's conference this year underlines the continually growing importance of Bermuda to the global insurance industry.

In a special section to welcome the RAA beginning on Page 17, Roger Crombie takes a look at what the RAA is and what it does, shows how a similar organisation works here in Bermuda and analyses the state of Bermuda's international insurance industry as the days tick away towards the new century.

BUSINESS BUC