A refusal to stand still
Having spent three decades helping establish companies in Bermuda, Brad Adderley, Bermuda managing partner at law firm Appleby, is understandably difficult to surprise.
He has watched successive waves of capital reshape the island’s re/insurance market. He was there as the market absorbed the influx of new reinsurers following 9/11. He witnessed the arrival of hedge fund-backed capital, the emergence of insurance-linked securities (ILS) and the transformation of catastrophe bonds from a niche product into a cornerstone of the global risk transfer market.
More recently, he has seen Bermuda establish itself as a leader in asset-intensive life reinsurance while simultaneously attracting new interest in managing general agents (MGAs), digital assets and insurance innovation.
Against that backdrop, another year of growth seems less an exceptional achievement and more the continuation of a pattern.
“I’m not surprised to see the reinsurance market growing,” he told Bermuda:Re+ILS. “I’ve been in Bermuda and forming companies for 30 years... I actually expect the market to grow every year.”
That confidence was not a claim that growth is automatic. It reflected Adderley’s view that Bermuda has built a market in which each phase of innovation strengthens the next. New forms of capital have not displaced the old; they are being absorbed into a system that has become broader and more experienced. Catastrophe bonds, collateralised reinsurance, life business, managing general agents (MGAs) and digital assets are not just separate success stories in his account. They are evidence of a market that has learned how to keep adding capabilities without losing the foundations on which its reputation rests.
A market that keeps widening
Adderley pointed first to the continued development of ILS. The catastrophe bond sector continues to reach new highs, both in volume and sophistication, with the first quarter of 2026 breaking records at $63.9 bn in issuance and expansion into more non-traditional lines of business.
While offering broader protection solutions to bridge protection gaps, this movement also offers diversified opportunities for capital. Adderley explained: “Cat bonds used to be just P&C. Now it’s P&C with a mixture, or just pure casualty. It’s good to see the expansion and mixture of new lines into cat bonds.”
Casualty sidecars, once regarded as an interesting concept that rarely progressed beyond discussion, are reaching meaningful scale, taking an approximate 10% slice of the total market capacity, as reported by S&P Global.
Adderley has witnessed this progression in casualty sidecars first hand: “A pleasant surprise has been the growth of casualty sidecars. Historically, we saw a lot of interest, but they didn’t quite materialise,” he said. More recently, Appleby has worked on transactions that closed, and at a scale that made them noteworthy. “We’ve done a few of them, and those sidecars are large, at the $500 million mark.”
But Adderley did not suggest that completion alone proved the model. He acknowledged that the results would become clear only over several years. The immediate point was narrower: transactions that had often stalled are now reaching the market, and they are doing so with substantially more capital than the smaller structures sometimes associated with emerging ideas.
The same pattern is visible in collateralised reinsurance more broadly. In Adderley’s view, the category has moved from the edge of the industry into its normal operating model. “It has grown significantly. I think it’s part of the natural evolution of the marketplace,” he said.
He argued that almost every commercial carrier now touches collateralised capital in some form, whether through catastrophe bonds, sidecars, collateralised vehicles or third-party capital platforms, adding: “I would think it surprising if there’s a commercial carrier out there who does not have some type of collateralised involvement.”
Asked whether the distinction between traditional reinsurance and alternative capital was continuing to blur, he was unequivocal: “No question.”
Traditional reinsurance will remain the larger market, but collateralised capital has become “more of a mainstay”, Adderley said: “It’s more of a question of if you don’t have it, why don’t you have it?”
Structures have evolved with wider use. Transactions increasingly combine several routes into insurance risk and “there’s different ways of accessing the collateral, mixing different avenues into one structure”. The result is that carriers can transfer more risk while investors can participate through structures suited to their own requirements.
The marketplace advantage
For Adderley, Bermuda’s continued success story is heavily tied to Front Street’s historical shop window equivalence: the concentration of talent, expertise and decision-making all within a stone’s throw.
“It’s a real marketplace. You walk down the streets in Bermuda and see insurance and reinsurance all around you. You do deals over lunch and breakfast.”
Beyond that, Adderley argues this proximity ecosystem means legislation and regulatory framework evolution can develop significantly quicker, with direct access to the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA). Bermuda’s companies, professional advisers, regulators and investors have accumulated experience together, creating a level of access and interaction that competing jurisdictions cannot easily reproduce.
The broadening of the island’s business mix has added to that depth. Life reinsurance has continued to expand, and Adderley expects that activity to remain strong: “There’s no turning off the faucet.”
He also pointed to increasing interest in MGAs. “MGAs are a hot topic. We’re seeing MGAs formed in Bermuda, which only grows the marketplace, bringing more people, expertise and commercial activity to the island,” he said.
Digital assets represented another area where he expected further convergence, and he sees this as a real opportunity for Bermuda to capitalise: “As a jurisdiction, we are pushing Bermuda’s Digital Asset Business Act (DABA )and crypto, and processes and simplicity of structures across all industries in Bermuda. We have innovative licence categories, and we have the sandbox. So, we’re a natural incubator for new ideas. We really are a leader in both reinsurance and crypto. I expect those two to come together more and more, and evolve into new products.”
Scrutiny as part of success
The same success that attracted capital also brought more attention, especially in asset-intensive life reinsurance, where regulators and policymakers have focused on asset allocation, matching strategies and the long-term security of policyholders.
Adderley regarded that scrutiny as inevitable. “Every time we’ve been successful in Bermuda, people focus on us,” he said. Jurisdictions ceding business need confidence that reinsurers will be able to meet obligations many years later.
He was clear to express the stakes with life insurance, and how the weight of the risk matters: “Now, let’s also be honest: there’s a difference if we don’t pay a P&C claim, and the house doesn’t get repaired. It’s still not good, but there’s a bigger difference if a pensioner in another jurisdiction doesn’t get paid because of a life reinsurer.”
For that reason, he views strong regulation and sustained international engagement as central to Bermuda’s proposition rather than obstacles to growth. “The scrutiny is a positive because it means we’re doing things right,” he said.
Adderley credited the BMA with explaining the island’s framework to overseas regulators and demonstrating that it is “prudent, sensible and proportionate”. Its participation in international committees, conferences and regulatory discussions has helped build confidence in how Bermuda handles increasingly complex business.
He also rejected the idea that regulatory speed implied lower standards. “Too many people think of speed as being a negative. No, it just means it’s the right regulation,” he said. A timely decision could reflect appropriate staffing, relevant expertise and an understanding of the transaction rather than weaker scrutiny. “If it’s going to take you more than a year onshore to get something approved, then you might have missed the window.”
And that’s why Bermuda’s structure makes the difference: “You can access the regulator, discuss it with them, and get proper feedback quicker than anywhere else,” he said of the BMA. The answer might not always be the one a company wants, but the ability to have a direct discussion reduces uncertainty.
The risk of standing still
Growth has increased pressure on Bermuda. More specialist businesses mean more competition for experienced staff, but Adderley argues that the talent discussion has to extend beyond recruitment.
“If the BMA and lawyers and advisers are able to attract more insurance business to the island, what are we doing about housing? What are we doing about schooling? What are we doing about roads?” he questions.
Senior executives and specialist employees will judge the island as a place to live as well as to work. Housing, schools, transport and service standards therefore form part of the same commercial proposition.
That broader responsibility fed into his clearest warning. Asked about the greatest competitive threat to Bermuda’s position, Adderley did not name another jurisdiction or a particular regulatory challenge.
“Complacency, complacency, complacency,” he warned. “It takes you 30 years to build your reputation. One mistake can crash it all down.”
Other jurisdictions will continue to pursue captives, ILS and other insurance business. Adderley regarded that competition as a compliment, but also as a reason to keep moving. “Everyone’s trying to eat our lunch,” he said. “Instead of being concerned to lose something, let’s continue to push forward so that we can be adaptable for future demands.”
That was the thread connecting his view of Bermuda’s past, present and future. The island has not remained relevant by relying on one successful line of business. It has done so by adding new forms of capital, expertise and structures while preserving regulatory credibility and the advantages of a genuine marketplace.
Adderley’s lack of surprise is therefore not complacency. It is confidence rooted in experience paired with a clear understanding that continued success will depend on Bermuda refusing to stand still.
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Brad Adderley is Bermuda managing partner at law firm Appleby. To find out more about Appleby, visit www.applebyglobal.com.
Read the full Bermuda:Re+ILS Annual 2026 here.
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