The Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) licensed 17 new captives in 2021, according to the regulator’s latest Annual Report. With a total of 78 new insurance entities registered with the BMA last year, 64 new licences consisted of insurers or reinsurers, while 14 were new registered intermediaries. Of the 64 insurers and reinsurers, 17 (27 per cent) were new captives, while 27 (42 per cent) were special purpose insurers (SPIs). Other new registrants were either commercial insurers, reinsurers, or an innovative general business insurer. The report notes that the majority of Bermuda captive owners have a parent company based in North America, followed by Europe and Bermuda. In total, the majority of Bermuda captives write connected or related business, followed by captives writing third-party business, single-parent captives, and SPIs. The BMA’s report also details regulatory developments in the island’s insurance sector throughout 2021, noting that six of the newly-licensed SPIs were registered through the BMA’s new three-day licensing and registration process before year-end. In addition, the BMA admitted more companies offering innovative products or operating under innovative, non-traditional structures to its insurtech regulatory regime in 2021. Four organisations were admitted to the Authority’s innovative hub, while a further four were registered under its insurance regulatory sandbox. The BMA highlights that integrating climate change and sustainability into a regulatory framework and supervision is one of the key corporate objectives. This requires information from insurance groups on their general climate risk understanding, stress testing, and assessment of impact on strategy, governance, underwriting, product development, and investments.
