Bermuda’s captive market faces new pressure, but holds firm
A deep legacy, strong regulation and rising premium growth keep the island at the forefront, says Mark Richardson, editor of Captive Review.
Bermuda has a long and storied history with captive insurance, which continues to serve it well today.
Having been one of the first jurisdictions to welcome and service captives in the 1960s, the island has a tradition around captives that few domiciles can match, with many large organisations establishing captives there that have remained ever since.
As a result, at the Bermuda Captive Conference every year we regularly see household names celebrating 25 or 50-year anniversaries of having their captive on the island.
This year, tech giant Sony celebrated its captive’s 50th birthday, with senior vice president of risk management Julie DeSantis telling the conference audience that the reasons they chose Bermuda in 1975 still hold true today.
Collaboration, long-term partnerships, maturity, accessibility, resilience, reputation, integrity and an operational ease to work with were all mentioned as reasons why Sony doesn’t look elsewhere to domicile its captive.
It’s a strong endorsement that is echoed by many other owners of Bermuda captives.
However, rising competition, particularly from onshore US jurisdictions, has undoubtedly proved a challenge, curtailing growth in captive numbers in Bermuda in recent years.
There are now 36 US jurisdictions with their own captive legislation and more countries in Europe and Asia Pacific are passing laws enabling captive formation and actively marketing themselves as viable domiciles.
The choice of where to base a captive has never been so great, and on this island there is an appreciation that some risk managers setting up a new captive will always prefer to base it closer to home than look at Bermuda.
Nevertheless, among those clients committed to Bermuda and the advantages it offers, captive managers report that almost all are actively looking to develop and expand their captive programmes.
That is borne out by statistics from the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA). While the number of captives has remained static at around 632 between 2021-2024, (and fell to 608 in 2025), the gross premium written by Bermuda captives in the past couple of years has risen significantly.
Premium rose by more than $3 bn to exceed $34 bn in 2024, with the most growth coming in Class 3 insurance companies, rising from about $17.6 bn in 2023 to $19.1 bn in 2024.
The growth reflects broader global trends, as claims inflation, a lack of commercial appetite for certain risks and a deluge of new emerging risks contribute to an increasing appetite for captive solutions worldwide.
Bermuda has the established market, regulatory infrastructure and access to reinsurance capital that make it very well suited for captives seeking portfolio growth. But to take full advantage of the opportunity, the island must compete with the most attractive global domiciles and demonstrate its historic reputation for innovation.
The BMA’s work to allow some captives to hold recognised stablecoins up to 25% of capital and surplus, alongside its experience regulating complex captive structures utilising structured reinsurance solutions, are sure signs that Bermuda is doing that.
It might still struggle to attract vast numbers of US-based organisations to set up new captives like it once did, but through its base of large, mature captives, Bermuda is likely to remain one of the stand-out global locations for captives in years to come.
Mark Richardson is editor, North America and Offshore, of our sister publication Captive Review. To find out more about Captive Review, visit captivereview.com
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