Dear friend,

I remember an old colleague — a great share tipper and an even better investment writer — coining a phrase that developed into an excellent humorous definition of what a penny stock gold mine is in investment terms:

“A gold mine is a hole in the ground with a liar standing next to it”

It made me wonder if I couldn’t come up with an equivalent irreverent definition for a reinsurance company. Let’s see:

All purpose version:

“A reinsurance company is a pile of paper with a deluded optimist standing next to it”

Or the soft market version:

“A reinsurance company is a pile of paper with a deluded optimist hiding underneath it”

The hard market version might be:

“A reinsurance company is a pile of paper with a queue of investment bankers offering to take it out for lunch”

This is fun — let’s have a go at some more old reinsurance proverbs:

“Don’t count your… true asbestos reserves until a hard market”

“A stitch in time is… now known as ERM”

“Many hands make… for great golf days”

“Fool me once, shame on you… fool me twice, don’t pay the claim”

“A Rolling Stone… world tour contingency cover gathers many excess layers”

“Lightning never strikes twice… unless your sideways retro cover still isn’t placed”

“Hell hath no fury like a… broker who’s lost an account”

“He who fails to study the past is doomed to… become business development manager for emerging markets”

“Red sky at night: shepherd's delight. Red sky in the morning… a refinery’s on fire”

“The CFO is willing but the underwriter is weak”

“Rome wasn’t built… sprinklered to ISO 9001 standards”

Hey this beats working!

How about you add some more?