Bermuda entices Canadian captive insurance companies

Located just over 1000 kilometers off the Eastern Seaboard of the United States, Bermuda is a British Territory known for its white sand beaches, rich history and affluent economy fueled by the finance and insurance industry. And if Charles Collis, a Director and attorney at law firm Conyers, Dill & Pearman, has his way, Bermuda will become the preferred domicile for Canadian captive insurance companies.

Charles Collis: We've recently entered into a tax information exchange agreement with Canada. And this has given Bermuda now an equal footing from a tax standpoint with Barbados, which to this point has been the preferred off-shore jurisdiction for Canadian companies.

However, Bermuda is the world's largest captive domicile and we believe it has the best infrastructure and services for captives, and so we see that now with this tax information agreement having been signed it is a perfect opportunity to come and meet Canadian captive insurance owners and potential captive insurance owners and encourage them to use Bermuda as their domicile for their captive insurance companies.

We encourage Canadians to establish their captives in Bermuda; it's business for the captive service providers and enhances the Bermuda insurance market just that much more. But I also believe there are real opportunities and benefits for Canadians to have their captives in Bermuda. The infrastructure and the service in Bermuda is second-to-none. There are approximately 1300 insurance companies in Bermuda; 900 of which are captive insurance companies. The other 400 are commercial insurance companies. So with 900 captive insurance companies in Bermuda there are very experienced captive managers, older firms, attorneys and the other captive service providers.

The owner of the Bermuda captive also has benefit of being in the jurisdiction where there is truly a one-stop-shop. With so many third party commercial writers in Bermuda a captive owner can come to Bermuda to hold his captive meetings with his manager and then go straight to his insurance company or his re-insurer across the road.

Insurance is a very big piece of our Bermuda practice. As I mentioned there are 1300 insurance companies in Bermuda so it keeps our insurance group very busy. Those insurance companies in total write in excess of 100 Billion dollars of premiums and have approximately 500 Billion dollars in total assets. Such a big market makes Bermuda competitive with any insurance or re-insurance market around the world.

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