But Fannie Mae, instead of the banks, would negotiate insurance premiums with a preselected group of insurers with the goal of saving taxpayers' and homeowners' money.
Catastrophes can bankrupt an insurance company, or even a whole group of insurers.
This recent group of insurers is far less troubled than A.I.G., but they still have been hurt by the collapse in real estate prices.
Lloyd's Market Association, a London-based group of insurers, lists Nigeria, Benin and the nearby waters in the same risk category as Somalia, where piracy has flourished.
Some health insurers in the Southeast are finding that as many as one in 10 small-business customers are not renewing their coverage, according to Brian Klepper, executive director of the Florida-based Center for Practical Health Reform, a group of insurers, hospitals and employers.
"If you shop for insurance, it is quite easy for one insurer to be half the price of another, even in the same group of insurers," Mr. Hunter said.
Mr. Dinallo enlisted Mr. Buffett's help last year to stave off a crisis in the small group of insurers that guarantee hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds sold by states and municipalities.
Two Enron subsidiaries have been accused by a group of insurers of engaging in sham transactions in a tax haven, according to papers in federal bankruptcy court in New York.
In May, Robert Wright, the ministry official in charge of the reforms, told a group of insurers and their lawyers that they "were pushing at an open door as far as government is concerned.
The latest disclosure, made late Wednesday, includes nearly $1 billion the bank said it was owed by a group of insurers who backed commodity contracts that J. P. Morgan had with Enron.
