The number of insurers registered in Bermuda shot up in the second quarter of 2011 as the island made inroads against the Cayman Islands as the go-to domicile for reinsurers and insurance linked securities.
There were twenty-two new insurers and intermediaries registered in the Bermuda during the second quarter of 2011 compared to 8 in the previous quarter, according to a regulatory update published by the Bermuda Monetary Authority on Tuesday. The increase marks the largest quarterly jump in registrations since the second quarter of 2007, the BMA says.
A majority of the new registrations, a total of eight, were Special Purpose Insurers (SPI). The second most common registration included five single-parent captives, defined as Class 1 registrants.
The BMA introduced the special purpose class in 2009 as a way to attract catastrophe bonds, reinsurance sidecars and collateralized reinsurance vehicles to the islands and the number of traditional reinsurance firms waned.
One of the more notable registrations was the California Earthquake Authority’s $150 million catastrophe bond Embarcadero Re earlier this year.
