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David Hart, CEO, Bermuda Business Development Agency
15 March 2022News

‘If you build it, they will come’: execs gather for Bermuda Risk Summit

The Bermuda Risk Summit started yesterday (March 14), the first in-person event of this type in Bermuda for almost two years, because of COVID-19.

The event secured the attendance of a plethora of senior government officials: Premier David Burt; Minister of Economy and Labour Jason Hayward and his permanent secretary, Collin Anderson; and the Leader of the Opposition and shadow minister of finance Cole Simons.

Opening the conference, David Hart, CEO of the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA), said: “We’re thrilled with the level of support we’ve had from industry and government support for this first Bermuda Risk Summit. It’s an event we hope will happen every year from now on. After two years of meeting virtually, there’s been a strong level of interest in the global risk industry to give back to Bermuda and meet in person.”

Paraphrasing a line from the American movie Field of Dreams, “If you build it, they will come”, Hart said the BDA had exceeded its registration target for the event, and attracted “a great deal of” overseas visitors from the US and the UK.

“As we take what we hope will be our first steps out of this global pandemic, we’re pleased to be able to support Bermuda’s economy in this important way at this historic time.

“Not only is this the first major in-person risk event in Bermuda since 2019, it’s also the first large in-person gathering with overseas visitors since the new Covid regulations were put in place on March 7. Many years from now, I think we’ll look back at this summit and see it as the turning point in Bermuda’s Covid story; a moment where literally and figuratively embraced our overseas friends again after an absence of two years.”

Relationship with Florida

Hart has been the CEO of the BDA for just five months, but as a sixth-generation Floridian, said he had “known and felt” the impacts of Bermuda’s risk industry to his home state for decades.

“Ever since Hurricane Andrew in the 1990s, Bermuda’s risk market has stepped up to help close the gap in Florida – lowering the price of homeowner’s insurance that they would otherwise have had to pay to insure their homes. Some say, the trade relationship between Florida and Bermuda is one of the most important in the world, and this is especially true during hurricane season.”

As a testament to the important relationship between Bermuda and Florida, he said the summit’s delegates included Florida’s insurance commissioner, David Altmaier.

“Bermuda is unique as a risk domicile, in that not only are we one of the world’s top 3 commercial reinsurance hubs, we’re also a premier captive domicile and a global leader in insurance-linked securities,” Hart said.

The variety of the industry expertise in Bermuda lent itself to having a wide selection of subject matter experts to choose from for the summit - from ESG benchmarking, to terrorism and property risk, he said.

Government thanks

Premier Burt thanked those who had visited Bermuda to attend the conference, but also the risk industry based in Bermuda who had been a “bedrock of support” throughout the pandemic.

“Whether it has been the significance of investments in the support we’ve given to charities, donations to maintain our vaccination regime, or support of the Bermuda Hospitals Charitable Foundation, the fact that our companies in the international business sector, when the pandemic was at its height in 2020, did not lay off their workers, made sure their workers were paid and continued to provide that support inside our economy.”

He added: “I want the risk industry to hear me very clearly when I say that the objective of this government, as we move beyond the pandemic, is to make sure Bermuda maintains its leadership across the board. We want to be the most competitive place in which to do business. The government has taken a number of strides in efficiency, in areas that are important to business, and made a number of changes when it comes to immigration legislation.”

The goal of the governor of Bermuda, he said, is that Bermuda remains “the most competitive place to deploy capital”, from both the regulatory and tax efficiency perspectives.

The Bermuda Risk Summit is being held at Hamilton Princess & Beach Club on 14-16 March. Its diamond sponsors are the Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers, Aon and EY; its gold sponsor is Appleby; its silver sponsors are Ariel Re, Kirkland & Ellis, KPMG, and SiriusPoint. Bermuda Brokers, Florida Insurance Council, Kettle, Meenan PA and Goslings are additional event sponsors.




More on this story

News
15 March 2022   He was speaking on a panel discussion at the Bermuda Risk Summit.
News
15 March 2022   He was speaking on a panel discussion at the Bermuda Risk Summit.
News
17 March 2022   Dates are also announced for an “even bigger and better” 2023 event.

More on this story

News
15 March 2022   He was speaking on a panel discussion at the Bermuda Risk Summit.
News
15 March 2022   He was speaking on a panel discussion at the Bermuda Risk Summit.
News
17 March 2022   Dates are also announced for an “even bigger and better” 2023 event.