Declining premium income has led Bermuda-based RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. to look for extra business in the primary insurance market.

For the nine months to September 30, RenaissanceRe wrote gross premiums of $215.6 million, a decline of 15 percent from the same period in 1996.

"We will maintain our focus on our core business (property catastrophe reinsurance) but we are interested in pursuing opportunities that give us leverage off of our corporate skills -- which includes principally catastrophe modelling,'' Chief Financial Officer John Lummis said. "That has led us to focus resources on building a primary insurance business in addition to the reinsurance business.'' Keith Hynes, who was appointed president of subsidiary Glencoe Insurance Ltd., has the task of building the primary insurance business.

"The new business effort is focussed on building the primary insurance capability here where it has significant catastrophe exposure,'' he said. The company has 33 employees, all based in Bermuda. The company reported a profit of $35.4 million or $1.55 per share, for the third quarter ended September 30, about $1.1 million less than the company made in the same period last year.

Net operating income, excluding realised investment gains and losses, was $34.4 million, or $1.50 per share for the quarter, about $2.7 million less than the same period last year. Per share amounts for 1997 received a boost from a lower number of common shares in circulation. The company has purchased 3.6 million of its common shares since December 1996.

The company wrote gross premiums of $60.4 million for the third quarter, compared with $73.6 million in the same period last year, a decline of about 18 percent. Net premiums written were $46.7 million, compared with $65.2 million for the same quarter 1996. Net premiums earned were $53 million, a $10.5 million decline over the third quarter 1996. James Stanard, chairman, president and chief executive officer of RenaissanceRe, said the results were favourable for the quarter and were helped by a "relatively light'' Atlantic hurricane season. "Our business of providing excess of loss reinsurance to primary companies has remained stable and the primary insurance operations of Glencoe have added $5.2 million of premiums to date with no losses. Our gross written premiums have declined as a result of declining retrocessional business.'' The company also announced its original institutional investors were applying to the US Securities and Exchange Commission to sell four million common shares. The sale would bring down the original investors' holdings to 36 percent from 54 percent ownership in the company.