Bermuda’s strength lies in experience, flexibility and a regulator willing to engage

Bermuda’s long-standing appeal as a captive domicile rests not only on history, but on its ability to evolve with clients’ needs while maintaining a respected regulatory framework.

That was the message from the session “Bermuda Captives: History, Global Relevance and Emerging Opportunities”, held at the 2026 BMA Forum, entitled “Charting the Course: Managing Risk and Complexity in a Rapidly Evolving Landscape”, which took place in Bermuda this week.

Moderated by Gerald Gakundi, deputy managing director, head of insurance and investment funds at the Bermuda Monetary Authority, the panel featured Mia Smallman, director, global benefits at Halliburton and Tawana Tannock, managing director of Skuld Mutual Protection and Indemnity Association (Bermuda). The discussion ranged from Bermuda’s origins as a captive centre to the reasons it continues to attract sophisticated users today.

Gakundi opened with a personal reflection on the origins of captives and Bermuda’s place in that history. For him, the development of the island’s captive market is inseparable from the emergence of captives as a risk management tool more broadly. He noted that by the time the Bermuda Monetary Authority was established in 1969, Bermuda already had a significant number of captives in place. That, he suggested, remains an important part of the jurisdiction’s identity: Bermuda did not stumble into captives late, but developed alongside the sector itself.

What continues to matter now, however, is not simply heritage. It is the ability of the jurisdiction to keep adapting. Tannock said Bermuda was selected by her organisation decades ago because it was already a proven offshore location with a functioning regulator and established captive infrastructure. But she made clear that the island has stayed relevant because it did not stand still.

“I think it’s the fact that we often are innovative,” she said, pointing to Bermuda’s role in developing structures such as segregated accounts companies, which created flexibility for insurers and reinsurers to come together, manage risk and protect their own capital more efficiently.

That combination of innovation and responsiveness was a recurring theme. Tannock said the regulatory framework has created room for growth over time, including licensing structures that allowed her organisation to broaden how it uses Bermuda. What may once have been established for a narrow or contingent purpose can, in a jurisdiction like Bermuda, become a platform for wider activity as needs evolve.

For Halliburton, Bermuda’s attraction has also been practical. Smallman said the company had already built a long-standing relationship with the jurisdiction through other parts of its global structure before extending its use of Bermuda through a captive. Once that foundation was there, the next step made sense. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” she said, describing Bermuda as the natural location because the company already knew it could rely on the market, the infrastructure and the wider working relationship.

That familiarity has translated into broader use. Smallman explained that Halliburton initially used its captive structure for core risk management purposes, but more recently expanded it to include employee benefits. The logic was to make better use of the group’s global scale. 

Operating across dozens of countries, the company was not fully capturing the benefit of that scale on the employee benefits side. By bringing those programmes into the captive, it has improved cash flow and gained more flexibility in managing costs and renewals.

The discussion highlighted that one of Bermuda’s advantages is the way it supports companies as needs become more complex. Smallman said that once organisations become more comfortable with a captive, they naturally start to look at what else it could do. 

In Halliburton’s case, that includes looking at further US-based programmes, stop-loss and even parametric structures. The key point was that Bermuda provides an environment in which those conversations can happen.

Tannock made a similar point from a different angle. Her organisation has expanded its Bermuda platform not only for captive purposes, but also as a reinsurance base within a wider group structure. She said that as Bermuda’s reputation and regulatory standing have strengthened, other regulators have become more comfortable with Bermuda paper. That in turn has made it easier to use the island’s entities to support affiliated business elsewhere in the group.

This is where Bermuda’s value proposition goes beyond captives in the narrow sense. As Gakundi noted, companies can not only establish self-managed or manager-supported captive structures in Bermuda, but also access the reinsurance and capital ecosystem on the same island. Tannock said that proximity matters in practice. Reinsurers are not remote counterparties in another market; they are often right there in Bermuda, operating in the same regulatory environment and responding to the same information requests and market developments.

The panel also stressed that this ecosystem is supported by a regulator that is willing to listen. Tannock, who spoke from several perspectives including industry and legislative experience, said one of Bermuda’s strengths is that concerns raised by market participants are not dismissed out of hand. “The BMA is responsive,” she said. Whether the issue comes from an individual company or through an industry body, she said there is a willingness to come to the table and engage.

Smallman described the jurisdiction in similarly practical terms. For her, Bermuda works because it is both credible and efficient. There is deep knowledge in the market, but also a sense that things can actually get done. “Bermuda’s already figured it out,” she said. “We don’t have to figure it out on our own.”

That does not mean the challenges disappear. Both panellists acknowledged that captives still face difficult decisions around risk appetite, long-tail exposures, medical inflation, geopolitical strain and changing reinsurance appetites. But the broader point from the session was that Bermuda gives captive owners tools, relationships and regulatory support that help them respond calmly rather than reactively.

In closing, Gakundi argued that Bermuda’s captive success has come through evolution. The market has expanded across sectors, structures and uses, while preserving the combination of expertise, flexibility and credibility that made it attractive in the first place. On the panel’s evidence, that remains the core reason Bermuda continues to stand out as a domicile for captive insurance.

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