a new financial invention described as: catastrophe risk securitization, established with the introduction of a series of index-linked catastrophe loss futures and options by the Chicago Board of Trade(C.B.O.T). Those securities were a supplement to traditional reinsurance market mainly for i) high layer coverage, for very rare events where they provide some experimental capacity on the fringe of the traditional market capacity and ii) where direct indemnity for losses is less important to the ceding companies. The relatively few securitizations actually put in effect in the last 5 years makes clear that insurers view securitization as a supplement to reinsurance, and not as a replacement