Bermuda’s bid to court the life (re)insurance industry has already started to pay dividends with the island welcoming 15 such businesses in 2018.
Those 15 long-term (re)insurers represented a fifth of all the new registrations on the island in 2018, according to new data from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA). In 2017, there were six long-term new (re)insurance companies registered in Bermuda.
Overall, Bermuda saw 75 new (re)insurance company registrations in 2018, an increase of 17 compared with the prior year.
The largest (re)insurance companies in Bermuda are those designated Class 4 or Class E. In 2018, there were three Class 4 (re)insurers registered on the island – DSA Reinsurance Company, QBE Europe and Enhanzed Reinsurance. There were six Class E (re)insurers registered in Bermuda last year: DSA Reinsurance Company, Athene Annuity Re, CICA Life, Resolution Re, Warwick Re and Gibraltar Reinsurance Company.
Overall, 28 new commercial (re)insurers were registered by the BMA in 2018, compared with 17 in the prior year.
Bermuda’s captive (re)insurance market continued to grow with 19 such entities registered in 2018. These captives sit within the Class 1, 2, 3 general business and Class A, B long-term (re)insurance designations. In 2017, 17 captive businesses were registered in Bermuda.
The island’s dominance as the domicile of choice for the insurance-linked securities sector was once again reinforced in 2018. As the BMA figures show, there were 28 special purpose insurers (SPIs) registered on Bermuda in 2018, up four on the previous year.
There was a reduction in the number of (re)insurance intermediaries registering in Bermuda during 2018 however. In 2017, a total of 11 such entities were registered, but that dropped to four last year.
Two of those four were agents – Barbican Underwriting and Envelop Risk (Bermuda), with the remaining two – Resilience Economics and National General Insurance Management - operating as brokers.