The Bermuda insurance and reinsurance markets Why we work in Bermuda? Bermuda is home to a thriving and dynamic offshore financial services industry. Bermuda’s pragmatic commercial approach has created an operational, technical and regulatory infrastructure focussed on client’s needs. This approach has driven the development and success of Bermuda’s insurance and global financial services industries. From a mainly tourist destination in the 1950’s, Bermuda has been transformed into being in the enviable position of one of the most significant insurance and reinsurance centres in the world. Statistics The statistics are compelling – the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA) reported over 1,400 insurance and reinsurance companies on its register in 2006 with over US $ 100 billion in assets. With almost 1,500 companies, a skilled workforce of well over 2,000 professionals and a total assets of over US$200 billion, Bermuda's insurance market is the most economically significant sector of the Island's fast-expanding international business industry. Captive Reinsurance The insurance community is also one of the pioneers of the Bermuda International business marketplace. Historically, Bermuda was seen as a captive insurance jurisdiction, so called because they are often used to insure or reinsure the risks of their parent companies. Today, more than 3,000 captives are in operation globally. Bermuda, with more than a thousand of them on its register, has become the undisputed captive insurance capital of the world. However, over the last 15 years, Bermuda has evolved to become a global leader and is supplying 40% of the US and European market property catastrophe reinsurance coverage. Indeed, Bermuda's non-captive commercial insurance and reinsurance industry now ranks alongside traditional market leaders like Lloyd's of London. The commercial sector of the insurance industry grew out of the US liability insurance capacity crisis of the mid-1980s and was started by pioneering excess liability companies, ACE and X.L. Insurance. Finite risk insurance was added to the open market in 1988 with the formation of Centre Re, and then in 1992, on the heels of Hurricane Andrew, Bermuda attracted its first property catastrophe reinsurer: Mid Ocean Reinsurance. A further seven "cats" followed and with them came a $4 billion influx of new capital. International Reinsurance Following the tragic events of September 11, 2001, Bermuda’s reinsurance markets responded with timely claims payments in the billions of dollars to clients. During the same period, over $12 billion in fresh capital came to the Bermuda market to help meet the global crisis in capacity for large risk underwriting that resulted from those events. Buyers of commercial insurance and reinsurance coverages are increasingly shopping in the Bermuda market, which offers approximately $550 million in excess liability insurance limits per program and several hundred million in property catastrophe reinsurance protection per program. Directors and officers liability is another major line of business written in the Bermuda market. Other leading products include direct excess property, aviation products and airport liability, marine and aviation reinsurance, pollution liability, satellite insurance, employment practices liability and professional liability covers.