Bermuda’s leadership, reinforced
John Huff, CEO of ABIR, says Bermuda’s re/insurance market retains its global leadership position, with growing ABIR membership providing a robust market.
Bermuda has long been recognised as the world’s risk capital, offering stability and protection to policyholders and investors in an increasingly unpredictable world. For decades, Bermuda’s leading insurers and reinsurers have managed the cyclicality and changing conditions of the global market, with Bermuda maintaining its dominant position of consistently holding over one third of global property and casualty (P&C) reinsurance capacity.
Latest BMA figures reveal increased gross written premiums and assets held
According to the latest available statistics from Bermuda’s integrated and independent financial services regulator, the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), some 1,210 insurers and reinsurers were on the Bermuda register as of 31 December 2025. Fifty-six new insurers and reinsurers were added in 2025.
According to the BMA’s 2024 year-end information, total capital and surplus stood at $447 billion in 2024, an increase from $404 bn recorded in 2023.
Gross written premiums were $362 bn in 2024, an increase of $46 billion from the $316 billion recorded in 2023. This increase is mostly attributed to the growth in business written by large, commercial, general business insurers, another way to say a ‘typical ABIR member’.
Total assets reached an astonishing $2.17 trillion in 2024, an increase of $296 billion from $1.87 trillion in 2023. Bermuda’s re/insurance market continues to be extremely well capitalised, enabling it to weather the most significant of extreme stress events.
Bermuda is well known as a home for natural catastrophe re/insurance. In fact, it is often said the roots of Bermuda’s global re/insurance market were formed following sharp pricing and a dearth of capacity during the aftermath of South Florida’s Hurricane Andrew, which made impact as a catastrophic category five hurricane in August 1992.
Natural catastrophe remains the core of the Bermuda market, yet we continue to see significant growth in speciality lines, especially cyber, mortgage and credit insurance/political risk.
On the natural catastrophe front, we were particularly pleased to see Florida’s legal reforms beginning to improve confidence in that important marketplace. Florida remains one of the most significant catastrophe markets in the world, and the Sunshine State is often described as Bermuda’s largest trading partner with significant volumes of cross-border trade exchanging hands each hurricane season.
On the cyber re/insurance side, Bermuda has emerged as one of the leading markets serving economies around the world. According to the BMA, Bermuda’s cyber market saw aggregated incurred losses reach $1.45 billion in 2024, up from $1.03 billion in 2023. Bermuda’s cyber market saw higher loss ratios and more frequent claims with insurers paying $904 million for nearly 94,000 claims; $10.8 billion was written by and/or consolidated into Bermuda groups and commercial insurers. Bermuda’s commitment to innovation and transparency sets global best practice for cyber and is quickly becoming a cornerstone of Bermuda’s risk market.
In relation to mortgage, ABIR members help many Americans achieve their dreams of homeownership by traditionally providing half of the reinsurance capacity used by US mortgage guarantee insurers.
In terms of credit insurance, Bermuda’s contribution of additional capacity, alongside innovative risk transfer solutions such as insurance-linked securities (ILS), is essential to address loss events driven by factors such as inflation or geopolitical volatility.
The European Union (EU) remains one of our most important markets, with ABIR members paying $29.3 billion to EU policyholders and cedants during the five-year period from 2016 to 2020. ABIR members also write ~20% of broker-placed European property catastrophe reinsurance and would pay 51% of claims from a European windstorm.
Bermuda is now a trillion-dollar market
Doubters of Bermuda’s global pre-eminence had their conjectures silenced by news of Bermuda’s now trillion-dollar market size.
In September 2025, the BMA reported that Bermuda commercial re/insurers incurred an astonishing $1.1 trillion in gross claims to policyholders and cedants over the nine-year period from 2016 to 2024.
A large portion of these costs stemmed from large catastrophes, and property and casualty losses. The BMA compiled this data from claims surveys as well as the annual statutory filings of commercial insurers.
These figures demonstrate the Bermuda market’s resilience to major stress events (such as an increased frequency and severity of global natural catastrophe events) and how Bermuda’s robust regulatory framework enables re/insurers to maintain adequate capitalisation and ample liquidity, ensuring the settlement of policyholder claims as they arise. It is also interesting to note that this $1.1 trillion figure does not include Bermuda’s sizeable captive re/insurance and ILS markets, so the actual size of claims for the total Bermuda market would be much higher.
ABIR remains the largest contributor to island’s economy
ABIR’s member companies are proud of their contributions to Bermuda’s economy and, at the latest count, employed a record number of Bermudians and contributed over $1.2 billion to Bermuda’s economy in 2024, with expected 2025 economic substance contributions to be tallied at over $2 billion.
ABIR members employ close to 1,500 Bermudians, spouses of Bermudians or Permanent Resident Certificate (PRC) holders, representing a 46% increase over 10 years. Over the past 20 years, since ABIR has conducted its Annual Economic Substance Survey, ABIR members have contributed a record $16.5 billion to the Bermuda economy.
ABIR also continues to build out Bermuda’s talent pipeline and has sponsored a free ‘Special Topics in Insurance’ foundational course for the past six years, which it offers in partnership with the Bermuda College, the Maurice R. Greenberg School of Risk Management, Insurance and Actuarial Science at St. John’s University and the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies (BFIS). We were so pleased that several of our hard-working Special Topics in Insurance students were able to attend ABIR’s inaugural Risk Forum earlier this year.
ABIR Risk Forum to grow from strength to strength
2026 marked the launch of ABIR’s first Risk Forum which attracted a veritable who’s who of international standard-setters sharing their views on the world’s most pressing problems.
Keynote speakers included Petra Hielkema, chairperson, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), Scott White, president, US National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and Sir Charles Roxburgh KCB, chair, Lloyd’s.
Only in Bermuda could you get the chair of Lloyd’s, the chair of EIOPA and the president of the NAIC all in the same room working alongside titans of industry to chart a global course through complex global issues. We heard again and again where we have to go, and such consensus bodes well for our ability to solve some of these global issues — as complex as they are.
Internationally respected Bermuda regulator
In 2026, Bermuda celebrates 10 years of Solvency II equivalence. At the ABIR Risk Forum, EIOPA chairperson Hielkema compared the BMA’s Solvency II equivalence to a marriage whose vows keep being renewed. Her powerful metaphor underscores the trust, commitment and dedication both sides have invested in this partnership over the last decade. ABIR looks forward to celebrating many more anniversaries to come in future decades.
Bermuda’s commitment to high regulatory standards was also acknowledged in 2025 with the reaffirmations of Bermuda’s NAIC Reciprocal and Qualified Jurisdiction Statuses.
At the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) level, the BMA is represented on the IAIS Executive Committee and is active on nearly all IAIS committees and subcommittees. This ensures Bermuda’s priorities and concerns are always expressed at the international level.
In conclusion, the Bermuda market has the technical expertise and proven ability to play a leading role in closing the global risk protection gap, increasing the resilience of some of the world’s most vulnerable communities, by working side by side with government policy makers, supervisors, and market participants to create innovative structures to cover global complex risks. For the re/insurance industry, the challenge is not only to respond to change, but to stay ahead of it. No market is better equipped to adapt to this fast-paced environment than Bermuda.
John Huff is chief executive officer of the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR). To find out more about ABIR, visit www.abir.bm
For more news on Bermuda Risk Review 2026, click here.
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