Under non-proportional reinsurance the reinsurer only pays out if the total claims suffered by the insurer in a given period exceed a stated amount, which is called the "retention" or "priority". For instance the insurer may be prepared to accept a total loss up to $1 million, and purchases a layer of reinsurance of $4 million in excess of this $1 million. If a loss of $3 million were then to occur, the insurer would bear $1 million of the loss and would recover $2 million from its reinsurer. In this example, the insurer also retains any excess of loss over $5 million unless it has purchased a further excess layer of reinsurance.