ORGANIZATION AND BASIS OF PRESENTATION

6 Months Ended

Jun. 30, 2012

Organization, Consolidation and Presentation of Financial Statements [Abstract]

ORGANIZATION AND BASIS OF PRESENTATION

ORGANIZATION AND BASIS OF PRESENTATION

Greenlight Capital Re, Ltd. (‘‘GLRE”) was incorporated as an exempted company under the Companies Law of the Cayman Islands on July 13, 2004. GLRE’s principal wholly-owned subsidiary, Greenlight Reinsurance, Ltd. (‘‘Greenlight Re”), provides global specialty property and casualty reinsurance. Greenlight Re has an unrestricted Class ‘‘B” insurance license under Section 4(2) of the Cayman Islands Insurance Law. Greenlight Re commenced underwriting in April 2006. Effective May 30, 2007, GLRE completed an initial public offering of 11,787,500 Class A ordinary shares at $19.00 per share. Concurrently, 2,631,579 Class B ordinary shares of GLRE were sold at $19.00 per share in a private placement offering.  During 2008, Verdant Holding Company, Ltd. (‘‘Verdant”), a wholly owned subsidiary of GLRE, was incorporated in the state of Delaware. During 2010, GLRE established Greenlight Reinsurance Ireland, Ltd. ("GRIL"), a wholly-owned reinsurance subsidiary based in Dublin, Ireland. GRIL provides multi-line property and casualty reinsurance capacity to the European broker market and provides GLRE with an additional platform to serve clients located in Europe and North America.  As used herein, the ‘‘Company” refers collectively to GLRE and its subsidiaries.

The Class A ordinary shares of GLRE are listed on Nasdaq Global Select Market under the symbol ‘‘GLRE”.

These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements are prepared in conformity with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States of America ("U.S. GAAP") and in accordance with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all of the information and footnotes required by U.S. GAAP for complete consolidated financial statements. These unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements should be read in conjunction with the Company’s audited consolidated financial statements for the year ended December 31, 2011. In the opinion of management, these unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements reflect all of the normal recurring adjustments considered necessary for a fair presentation of the Company’s financial position and results of operations as of the dates and for the periods presented.

The results for the six months ended June 30, 2012 are not necessarily indicative of the results expected for the full calendar year.