Regulation, talent and tech will keep Bermuda relevant
Bermuda has long been at the forefront of reinsurance innovation — from captives to excess casualty, from catastrophe bonds to ILS. But as the market evolves once again, industry leaders at Convergence 2025 were asking: what will keep Bermuda relevant in the decade ahead?
The panel, comprised of Richard Lowther – managing partner of Integral ILS as moderator (pictured right), Brian Duperreault, executive chairman of Cedar Trace (pictured second from right), Steve Velotti, CEO and CIO of Pillar Capital Management (pictured centre) Jessica Laird, CEO of Nephila Capital (pictured second from left) and Kathleen Reardon, CEO of Hiscox Re & ILS (pictured left) repeatedly pointed to regulation, location and people as Bermuda’s core advantages.
“The Bermuda environment has a lot of attractive qualities — the forward-looking regulator, the proximity to the largest market being the US, the infrastructure here, the talent here, is fantastic,” Reardon said. But that edge comes with work: “We do need to keep evolving, and we certainly have a great track record of success there. But still, what we want to focus on more is digital infrastructure.”
Talent was described as both Bermuda’s strength and its recurring challenge. “We’re currently going through another war for talent,” Reardon warned, adding that firms must nurture staff because “the job you’re coming in to do today is definitely not the job you’re doing by the time you retire.” Several panellists flagged the post-COVID learning gap for junior hires: Velotti remarked that remote work “did a huge disservice to the industry… a 22-year-old sitting at home at their kitchen table is going to learn nothing in comparison to being around all the senior people.”
Technology — notably AI and data analytics — was framed not as a replacement but as an amplifier. Laird expressed that: “AI’s not going to do our jobs for us, but it can allow us to think more broadly, brainstorm more creatively, come up with different solutions and try things on.” On data, Laird’s point was practical: firms must “be really clear with how they’re storing data in a structured, organised way, so that it can be accessed and used as a tool to help draw trends.”
Cost pressures and competition were acknowledged candidly. “It’s an expensive place to do business,” Duperreault, a long-time market participant, observed. “Talent’s expensive. And if we’re going to get into these other lines, we’re going to have to get the talent to do it.” Still, confidence in Bermuda’s fundamentals ran through the discussion: “It’s hard to duplicate the whole of what Bermuda is from an insurance point of view — the relationship between the permanent capital and the ILS, the natural flow of business in here, the innovation,” Duperreault said.
If there’s a single cultural advantage the panel returned to, it’s proximity and community. “We all work in this eight-block fish bowl,” Velotti said — a compact ecosystem they argued helps develop careers, spark ideas and keep Bermuda competitive into its next chapter.
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