CONSOLIDATED BALANCE SHEETS (Parentheticals) (USD $) In Thousands, except Share data, unless otherwise specified	Dec. 31, 2011		Dec. 31, 2010
Amortized cost of Fixed maturities (in Dollars)	$ 25,771,715	[1]	$ 27,322,842	[1]
Cost of Equity securities (in Dollars)	480,685		56,737
Amortized cost of Short-term investments (in Dollars)	359,378		450,491
Fair value of held to maturity securities (in Dollars)	$ 2,895,688		$ 2,742,626
Redeemable Series C preference ordinary shares, shares authorized	20,000,000		20,000,000
Redeemable Series C preference ordinary shares, par or stated value per share (in Dollars per share)	$ 0.01		$ 0.01
Redeemable Series C preference ordinary shares, shares issued	0		2,876,000
Redeemable Series C preference ordinary shares, shares outstanding	0		2,876,000
Class A ordinary shares, shares authorized	999,990,000		999,990,000
Class A ordinary shares, par value (in Dollars per share)	$ 0.01		$ 0.01
Class A ordinary shares, shares issued	315,645,796		316,396,289
Class A ordinary shares, shares outstanding	315,645,796		316,396,289

[1] Included in the table above are Tier One and Upper Tier Two securities, representing committed term debt and hybrid instruments, which are senior to the common and preferred equities of the financial institutions, at their fair value of $386.1 million and $757.8 million at December 31, 2011 and 2010, respectively. These securities are reflected in the table based on their call date and have net unrealized losses of $108.8 million and $143.7 million at December 31, 2011 and 2010, respectively.