Spain's Mapfre Re joins Inreon platform. (Technology).

Spanish reinsurer Mapfre Re has joined Inreon Ltd's online reinsurance trading and administration platform. The Spanish market has been "relatively quick" to take advantage of electronic trading, said Kaj Ahlmann, Inreon's chairman and chief executive officer. Spanish insurers and brokers that are Inreon members include Catalana Group, Fiatc, Heath Lambert Interbroker, Seguros GES and Victoria Group, he said.

Inreon is seeing more interest its electronic platform in the wake of Sept. 11, which disrupted many relationships between reinsurers and their clients, said spokesman Scott Farley. The company's business is concentrated in North America and Europe, and it is expanding, Farley said, pointing to the Hong Kong office that opened in February.

Farley said Inreon expects growth to come from three directions:

* Geographic expansion, with about 50 reinsurance buyers from 12 countries now trading on the platform and the new Hong Kong office attracting interest from companies in China, Taiwan, South Korea and Hong Kong;

* New lines of business, with the established facultative property, proportional and excess-of-loss range of products recently expanded to include treaty catastrophe excess of loss and industry loss warranty; and

* Value-added services, including online accounting, management information and endorsement functions.

"It is hoped that many of the new start-ups that have entered the reinsurance market, especially in Bermuda, will prefer to use an electronic trading platform rather than establish their own expensive, traditional distribution network," Farley said.