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Marine reinsurance is an indemnity relationship in which the marine reinsurer indemnifies the insurance company for losses paid. When a primary insurance company becomes insolvent, there may be insufficient funds in the estate to pay claims in full and it may take several years to distribute such funds. / For this reason, some insureds and third-party claimants seek to collect reinsurance proceeds directly from reinsurers (direct actions). However, The indemnity nature of the reinsurance agreement prohibits direct actions against reinsurers for reinsurance proceeds by insureds and other claimants. Under a marine reinsurance contract, the reinsurer does not assume the liability of the reinsured insurance company. In other words, the original insured cannot enforce his insurer's contract of reinsurance and is not a third-party beneficiary to that contract. Therefore, no privity exists between the reinsurer and the insured or persons claiming through him under the contract of reinsurance. / Absent an intent to benefit directly or create rights in insureds or other third parties, reinsurance proceeds are payable only to the reinsured insurance company or its domiciliary liquidator where the insurer becomes insolvent. / The insolvency of the reinsured does not affect this fundamental premise. Yet, in the face of this well-established principle of law, the original insured and other claimants still seek to recover themselves by making direct claims on the insolvent's reinsurers. The persistence in pursuing the variety of theories upon which the claimants have proceeded suggests a continuing unwillingness to accept the balancing of interests stay in liquidation statutes and the need for reinsurers to clearly settle their rights and obligations in reinsurance contracts.