The Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions (DIFI) has confirmed the state licensed 12 new captive insurance companies in 2020. The new licenses saw the total number of captives reach 131, which included 110 pure captives, 23 pure reinsurance captives, 10 risk retention groups, four industry group captives, five protected cells and 2 association captives. Of the total, 32 come from the finance and insurance industry, followed by 24 from the healthcare and social assistance industry. Other industries include construction, manufacturing, transportation and warehousing and retail. The Grand Canyon State also saw nine captive insurance closures last year. Arizona saw a small growth of 2.3 per cent from 2019, when it licensed nine new captives. In the same year, five captives terminated their license. Commenting on the growth, Vincent Gosz, chief captive analyst, Arizona DIFI, says: “The Arizona captive programme had another active year in 2020. With the effects of the pandemic, emerging and evolving risks like cyber, and the hardening commercial insurance market, we saw significant activity in new formations, changes in business plans, including new lines, changing limits and retentions, and other requests, along with some attrition as some entities merged or retrenched.” He adds: “We expect things to continue apace in 2021 as many of the same challenges remain and the usefulness of a captive seems pretty clear. Read more about what’s in store for the state’s captive insurance market here.
