Cutts-Watson Consulting has teamed up with the British Virgin Islands (BVI) captive insurance industry to review and “take advantage of newly presented opportunities to reinvigorate business”, according to a new report.
The report, “Building a thriving and sustainable Captive Industry in the British Virgin Islands”, was intended to examine the BVI’s legislative, regulatory and business framework and define a “new vision” for BVI’s captive insurance industry.
Although the industry has seen successful developments, it has faltered slightly, according to report. It suggested that this was a result of the territory not having modernised captive legislation, and because of increased competition from neighbouring offshore financial services centres.
It revealed a number of the BVI’s key strengths in the captive industry sector, including modern company law, special purpose captive legislation, the ability to re-domicile and corporate governance requirements.
The report also reinforced: “These core fundamentals facilitate the creation of corporate structures to house captive business and the implementation of a robust governance framework around them.”
In addition, the report laid out an implementation plan for “delivering the vision and identifing new sources of business, obstacles inhibiting success and strategies to overcome the obstacles”.
To produce the report, the Cutts-Watson consulting team met with various captive managers during a visit to BVI. Other companies the team met with on the visit included the BVI Association of Insurance Managers; the Insurance Division of the Financial Service Commission; BVI Finance, a selection of FS service providers; domestic insurance industry representatives; and members of the Government’s Financial Services initiatives implementation team.
The team also met with Guernsey’s captive producers and captive managers that are not currently represented in BVI, and with competing captive domiciles and regulators.
