In an effort to better strengthen the BVI captive insurance industry and take advantage of newly presented opportunities to reinvigorate business, BVI Finance commissioned Cutts-Watson Consulting to undertake a strategic review of the BVI’s captive insurance sector.
The report, which was published earlier this month, was initiated because, after successful development of the BVI’s captive insurance industry in the mid 00’s, the sector’s growth began to falter as a result of the territory not having modernised captive legislation and increased competition from neighbouring offshore financial services centres.
Titled “Building a thriving and sustainable Captive Industry in the British Virgin Islands”, the report aimed to identify the BVI’s role and position as an offshore captive domicile; review the BVI’s legislative, regulatory and business framework; define a new vision for the BVI’s captive insurance industry; lay out an implementation plan for delivering the vision and identify new sources of business, obstacles inhibiting success and strategies to overcome the obstacles.
To that end, the Cutts-Watson Consulting team met with various captive managers during a visit to the BVI to obtain necessary information. The meetings were attended by the BVI Association of Insurance Managers (“AIM”), the Insurance Division of the Financial Service Commission (“FSC”), BVI Finance, a selection of FS service providers, domestic insurance industry representative, and members of the Government’s financial services initiatives implementation team.
Additionally, from their offices in Guernsey the team met and spoke with captive producers, captive managers not currently represented in the BVI, competing captive domiciles and captive regulators.
Thus, the report’s findings were derived through a combination of primary research methods such as the aforementioned interviews, secondary research and the team’s own intimate knowledge of the global captive industry.
The report revealed a number of the BVI’s key strengths including that the BVI boasts a modern company law, SPC legislation, the ability to re domicile and corporate governance requirements. It also reinforced that these core fundamentals facilitate the creation of corporate structures to house captive business and the implementation of a robust governance framework around them.
The Cutts-Watson Consulting team has proposed a three pronged strategy to help the BVI take advantage of the captive insurance industry’s existing opportunities and take further steps to enhance and protect its reputation as a legitimate and respected offshore financial centre.
BVI Finance is committed to ensuring that the BVI maintains a competitive advantage as an international finance centre. For more information, contact info@bvifinance.vg.