In 2010, we entered into a five-year lease for office space in Manhattan, New York, covering 24,000 square feet. An additional floor of 24,000 square feet was also leased in the same building in 2011. Also, in 2011, we leased a 5,000 square foot of office space in Chicago, Illinois; and a 6,300 square foot office space in San Francisco, California. On September 28, 2012, we entered into a new 8,000 square foot lease in Boston for a five-year period.
written premiums in the reinsurance segment arose from other property and casualty reinsurance business. The increase in other property is due to strong production from our proportional treaty and facultative business as we benefited from positive pricing momentum in catastrophe-exposed accounts while casualty benefited from favorable prior year premium adjustments. In 2012, we recognized $9.9 million of reinstatement premiums associated with Superstorm Sandy. In 2011, we recognized $32.5 million of reinstatement premiums associated with the New Zealand earthquakes, the Australian floods, the Japanese earthquake, the Thai floods, the U.S. storms, and other natural catastrophe events, mainly included in property catastrophe. In 2011, the principal growth in premiums was in our insurance segment, mainly from our U.S. insurance lines as we started benefiting from our investment in 2010 in the U.S.
Taxes. We recognized a tax expense in 2012 of $15.0 million (2011 - $37.2 million credit; 2010 - $27.6 million expense), equivalent to a consolidated rate on income before tax of 5.1% in 2012 compared to 25.3% tax credit in 2011 and 8.1% in 2010. The tax in each of the years is representative of the geographic spread of our business between taxable and non-taxable jurisdictions in such years. The tax credit in 2011 was due to a greater proportion of losses having been incurred by Operating Subsidiaries in tax paying jurisdictions, adjustments to prior years’ tax provisions as well as reductions in the U.K. corporation tax rates.
dividends paid on ordinary and preference shares of $47.0 million and $31.1 million, respectively.
Market Conditions, Rate Trends and Developments in 2012 and Early 2013
Reinsurance. January 1 is a significant renewal date in the reinsurance market. The renewal period is dominated by the U.S. and European markets. For 2012, the property catastrophe business achieved
From January 1, 2013 to February 25, 2013, we repurchased 1,344,873 ordinary shares under its Rule 10b5-1 plan at an average price of $33.95 per share for a total cost of $45.7 million.
collaborate with our underwriting, claims, legal and finance teams in identifying factors which are incorporated in their range of ultimates in which management’s best estimate is most likely to fall. The actuarial ranges are not intended to include the minimum or maximum amount that the claims may ultimately settle at, but are designed to provide management with ranges from which it is reasonable to select a single best estimate for inclusion in our financial statements.
The 10th percentile represents a 1 in 10 chance that, for example, reinsurance reserves will be at or lower than $2,264.7 million. The 90th percentile represents a 1 in 10 chance that reserves will be at or greater than $3,244.4 million. Diversification reflects the fact that not all the segments are perfectly correlated; that is, we would not expect all lines of business to run off better than or worse than the mean at the same time.
Interest rate swaps. As at December 31, 2012, we held a number of standard fixed for floating interest rate swaps with a total notional amount of $1.0 billion (2011 - $1.0 billion) due to mature between June 4, 2013 and November 9, 2020. The swaps are used in the ordinary course of our investment activities to partially mitigate the negative impact of rises in interest rates on the market value of our fixed income portfolio. As at December 31, 2012, there was a charge in respect of the interest rate swaps of $23.0 million (2011 - $64.4 million charge).
We are organized into two business segments: Reinsurance and Insurance. The reinsurance segment consists of property catastrophe reinsurance, other property reinsurance, casualty reinsurance and specialty reinsurance. The insurance segment consists of property insurance, casualty insurance, marine, energy and transportation insurance, financial and professional lines insurance and programs business.
The increase in reinsurance recoverables in 2011 was due predominantly to the recognition of recoveries associated with the New Zealand earthquake and the Thai floods.
Insurance. Net reserve releases for the year ended December 31, 2012 in the insurance segment were $35.2 million. Property, casualty and financial and professional business lines led to reserve
On April 11, 2012, we issued 6,400,000 Perpetual Preference Shares with a liquidation preference of $25 for an aggregate amount of $160.0 million. Each Perpetual Preference Share will receive dividends on a non-cumulative basis only when declared by our Board at an annual