Important events and uncertainties that could cause our actual results, future dividends or future common share repurchases to differ include, but are not necessarily limited to: market conditions affecting our common share price; the possibility of severe or unanticipated losses from natural or man-made catastrophes, in particular catastrophes that are weather-related; the effectiveness of our loss limitation methods; our dependence on principal employees; our ability to execute the business plans of Syndicate 5151 and MUSIC effectively; increases in our general and administrative expenses due to new business ventures, which expenses may not be recoverable through additional profits; the cyclical nature of the reinsurance business; the levels of new and renewal business achieved; opportunities to increase writings in our core property and specialty reinsurance and insurance lines of business and in specific areas of the casualty reinsurance market and our ability to capitalize on those opportunities; the sensitivity of our business to financial strength ratings established by independent rating agencies; the inherent uncertainty of our risk management process, which is subject to, among other things, industry loss estimates and estimates generated by modeling techniques; the accuracy of estimates reported by cedants and brokers on pro-rata contracts and certain excess of loss contracts where a deposit or minimum premium is not specified in the contract; the inherent uncertainties of establishing reserves for loss and loss adjustment expenses, particularly on longer-tail classes of business such as casualty; unanticipated adjustments to premium estimates; changes in the availability, cost or quality of reinsurance or retrocessional coverage; changes in general economic and financial market conditions; changes in and impact of governmental legislation or regulation, including changes in tax laws in the jurisdictions where we conduct business; our ability to assimilate effectively the additional regulatory issues created by our entry into new markets; the amount and timing of reinsurance recoverables and reimbursements we actually receive from our reinsurers; the overall level of competition, and the related demand and supply dynamics in our markets relating to growing capital levels in the reinsurance industry; declining demand due to increased retentions by cedants and other factors; the impact of terrorist activities on the economy; rating agency policies and practices; unexpected developments concerning the small number of insurance and reinsurance brokers upon whom we rely for a large portion of revenues; our dependence as a holding company upon dividends or distributions from our insurance and reinsurance operating subsidiaries; and the impact of foreign currency fluctuation.
We undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise. Readers are cautioned not to place undue reliance on these forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the dates on which they are made.
