Reinsurance is a form of insurance for insurance companiesóa way of spreading the risk more widely. Until recently, reinsurance was a topic familiar only to those in the insurance industry directly involved in reinsurance transactions. Today, however, reinsurance is a subject of particular concern to those responsible for regulating the industry and of increasing interest to the financial community as a whole. To meet this growing interest, the Insurance Information Institute asked a number of reinsurance experts to write articles on the technical aspects of reinsurance for readers unfamiliar with the business. These essays, as a group, describe in simple terms what reinsurance is, how the industry functions, and provide a broad overview of the new challenges facing the industry today.