It remains to be seen if captives will utilise the Bermuda Monetary Authority’s (BMA) insurance regulatory sandbox, according to Mark Allitt, managing director of KPMG (Bermuda).
The sandbox, which will be accepting applications for on 1 July 2018, will allow companies to test innovative, new products and technology to a limited number of policy holders in a controlled environment.
The sandbox is one of two parallel innovation tracks, alongside an innovation hub, launched by the BMA to help the regulatory environment that both protects policyholders appropriately and promotes and is conducive to the use of technology.
Following a companies proposal, the BMA will determine the regulatory and legislative requirements which will be modified for the sandbox testing.
After a company successfully completes the sandbox testing period, it will be re-licensed to existing classes and will be fully subject to the relevant legal and regulatory requirements.
Speaking at the 2018 Bermuda Captive Conference, Allitt suggested that the sandbox represented the “perfect place for companies to trial new technology”, as it was “there to create a safety net for a business to develop”.
He said: “It was created by the BMA as a development sandbox, somewhere that companies can play with new technology in a real-life way, under increased regulatory scrutiny.”
“I think it will be significantly utilised by the commercial market, but we will have to wait and see whether it is utilised by captives.”
