Guernsey Finance has revealed a solid year of captive growth in 2019 as the island registered 11 new structures, the best result since 2016.
The new structures included four cell company captives, taking the total number in the island to 106, and seven non-cellular captives.
Guernsey also saw 24 closures during the year, taking the total number of captives to 305.
Risks underwritten by Guernsey captives include employee benefits, employers’ liability, marine and aviation risks, and terrorism.
Dominic Wheatley, chief executive of Guernsey Finance, said: “Some companies last year found they were facing rate increases for the first time in many years, an indication of the end of the long soft market.”
“I said at the end of 2018 that 2019 would be time to look again at captive programmes, and that proved to be the case. And the market would find that nowhere matches Guernsey’s unique combination of expertise, experience, market proximity and regulatory environment as a home for a captive,” he added.
Mike Johns, chairman of the Guernsey International Insurance Association, and director at Willis Towers Watson, suggested that Guernsey had benefited from fresh interest in captives, due to a change in market conditions as well as the confidence gained in Guernsey’s whitelisting for economic substance from the EU.
He said: “Our economic substance regime is robust and we have always managed captives properly.”