A number of insurance companies have been subpoenaed by U.S. regulators in connection with investigations relating to practices in the insurance industry. To date, we have not been served any subpoenas. We have received, and have responded to, requests for information from the North Carolina Department of Insurance and the Colorado Department of Insurance. We entered into placement service agreements and market service agreements with Aon Corporation and Marsh Inc. and have paid a total of $31,000 under these agreements as of December 31, 2004. We have accrued approximately $1.1 million in addition to the amount we have already paid under these agreements. At this time, it is not possible for us to determine the impact of any outcome of these investigations on our future results of operations. In addition, we do not know what the ramifications of the brokers' stated intent to formulate different commission structures, will be on our future results of operations, financial condition or liquidity as brokers will seek our participation in these commission structures.
We also derive revenues from the activities of our technical services segment. Our technical services segment operates primarily in the environmental area and its revenues principally comprise fees from technical services and risk management services provided under various short-term service contracts and from revenues for services performed by subcontractors we engage on behalf of clients. We also generate revenues from remediation fees which are used to extinguish environmental remediation obligations that we have assumed under contracts of remediation. The amount of technical services and remediation fees and subcontractor revenues is a function of political and economic conditions and the impact these conditions have on clients' discretionary spending on environmental projects.
General and administrative expenses consist primarily of personnel expenses, other operating overheads and professional fees. From time to time we engage administrative service providers and legal, accounting, tax and financial advisors. General and administrative expenses are a function of the development of our business, including the growth in personnel and the volume of insurance and
Technical services revenues. Technical services revenues were $32.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2004. Our technical services revenues for the year ended December 31, 2004 consisted of $14.5 million from direct labor and $18.0 million from subcontractor related activities.
As of December 31, 2004, the average duration of our investment portfolio was approximately 2.6 years with an average credit rating of approximately "AA".
General and administrative expenses. General and administrative expenses were $63.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2004. General and administrative expenses for the year ended December 31, 2004 were comprised of $40.7 million of personnel related expenses and $22.8 million of other general and administrative expenses. Personnel related expenses grew steadily during 2004 in
Net losses and loss expenses. Net losses and loss expenses were $149.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2004, and were a function of our net premiums earned and our expected ultimate losses and loss expenses for reported and unreported claims on contracts of reinsurance underwritten. Included in our expected ultimate losses are specific loss estimates on contracts of reinsurance insuring claims arising from hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne. Our estimate of our exposure to ultimate claim costs in our specialty reinsurance segment associated with these hurricanes based on currently available information, claim notifications received to date, industry loss estimates, output from industry models, a detailed review of affected contracts and discussion with cedants and brokers is $60.7 million, and is included in net losses and loss expenses for the year ended December 31, 2004.
The following table summarizes our net underwriting results and profitability measures for our specialty insurance and reinsurance segments for the period from May 23, 2003 (date of incorporation) to December 31, 2003. Our Lloyd's segment was not established until the fourth quarter of 2004:
Losses and loss expenses. Net losses and loss expenses incurred of $1.0 million reflect a loss and loss expense ratio of 63.0%. For the period ended December 31, 2003, we adopted an expected loss ratio methodology to estimate our ultimate cost of reinsurance losses. As of December 31, 2003, we had not received any notifications of reported losses on our specialty reinsurance lines of business.