Updates to Vermont’s legislation will help streamline processes and make doing captive insurance business in the state easier, according to Ian Davis, the state’s director of financial services.
House Bill 694, which Governor Phil Scott signed the new legislation into law on 8 March 2018, includes regulatory enhancements for branch captives, as well as the standardisation of the state’s annual filing date for annual reports and premium taxes.
Speaking at the 2018 Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) conference, Davis, suggested that even though the changes in by the new legislation were small scale they were important to the domicile’s continued success.
He said: “This year’s legislation was really taking some minor tweaks to our laws to help streamline some processes and make the ease of doing business that much better. We worked collaboratively to develop a consensus bill that we think will help advance the industry while also helping to maintain some of our prudent regulatory standards.”
The theme of the 2018 CICA conference was the “Challenge of Change” and Davis hailed the importance of the close and collaborative relationship in Vermont in allowing the domicile to continue to adapt and flourish.
He explained: “We are very fortunate in Vermont to have such a close working relationship with our governors and our legislature, and because of that we think it is important to constantly be working with them because it shows to the industry our commitment to continuous improvement and that is what it’s all about for us.”
“In Vermont we face challenges whether it be in the form of new competition, whatever it may be but we always try and position ourselves to be amenable to that change and be ready to adapt to be successful in the future.”
Davis said he expected 2018 to be a positive year for growth in the Vermont’s captive market: “We’ve already seen a lot of activity, we’ve licensed six companies so far in 2018.”
He added: “We’re very encouraged with some of the activity we are seeing in terms of redomestications. We are hopeful the tax law will be beneficial to the state. So we are looking forward to being able to position ourselves well for the marketplace.”