In 1990, the company reported an underwriting loss of $424 million on $2.7 billion in total earned premiums.

They say it did this to project an image of competence and to minimize underwriting losses.

But the current downturn in prices and underwriting losses has lasted six years, an unusually long stretch.

That made up for the nearly $20 billion in underwriting losses.

The company narrowed its underwriting loss in car insurance, its biggest line, to $1.5 million from $20.3 million a year ago.

"Our objective was to convert an underwriting loss into a capital loss," the memo from April 20, 2000, said.

That figure was derived by subtracting the industry's underwriting loss of $17.1 billion from its $21.6 billion investment income.

As a result, their underwriting losses declined from $52.6 billion in 2001 to $4.9 billion in 2003.

Capital losses for the years 2000 through 2003 will be shifted into underwriting losses.

In that same period, total underwriting losses grew to 1.5 billion Canadian dollars from less than 500 million.