Description: This presentation is an open forum, session 49OF, from the 2004 Spring Meeting of the Society of Actuaries, held June 14-15 in San Antonio, TX. Insurance and reinsurance companies have sought to pool their risks with others as a means of sharing risk as well as reducing volatility. The panelists provide a history of pool reinsurance and discuss how, unfortunately, participating in a pool can result in surprises and exposure to liabilities never anticipated. They discuss why many of these surprises have occurred, review actual case studies, and discuss what companies and reinsurers are doing to reduce and/or eliminate mistakes going forward. Discussion from participants is included. From the Record of Society of Actuaries, Volume 30, No. 2.