At first blush Cedar Management Services might sound like the new kid on the block among Bermuda's captive management companies.

However, the company attached to this new name is the former CNA Risk Services (CRS), which was established over twenty years ago.

CRS was a member of the CNA Group of Insurance Companies (CNA), headquartered in Chicago, specialising in captive management and running the day-to-day operations of CNA's four Bermuda-based insurance companies.

Tom McMahon and Michael Larkin, two friendly, down-to-earth Irishmen who also happen to be Chartered Accountants, were both senior managers at CRS and spotted an opportunity just over a year ago which resulted in them taking a proposal to CNA.

"We basically approached CNA about a management buyout 12 months ago and ended up signing a letter of intent with them in November 2004," says Mr. McMahon. "We were in negotiations over the past year and we've signed off on everything now and changed the company name to Cedar Management."

Mr. McMahon joined CRS in 1994, while Mr. Larkin joined in 1999 and they each have over 16 years experience in the Bermuda insurance industry.

They feel the new company name serves the dual purpose of linking the firm to Bermuda and symbolising the strength of the island's endemic tree.

Although the name and ownership has changed the company's services, and apparently much of its client base, remain intact.

"We had the support of all our clients and CNA has retained us to manage their Bermuda companies,"says Mr. McMahon, who is president of Cedar Management. Assets under management for those four companies alone reportedly are in excess of $1 billion.

In addition to CNA, which according to Mr. McMahon is the fifth-largest insurer in the US, the company currently has captives under management that include a range of other single parent and group captives and segregated account companies.

Reflecting the overall Bermuda market, most of the captives managed by the company are owned by US corporations; the remainder are owned by entities in the UK and Canada.

Cedar Management provides a full range of management services to support captives ? companies set up specifically to insure the risks of their parent company or affiliated corporations.

Those services include captive formation; financial accounting and reporting; corporate administration; investment co-ordination and monitoring; and underwriting support.

Relative to other players in the market Cedar Management is one of the smaller independent captive managers in Bermuda, but that's not a bad thing from their perspective.

"We currently have ten captives under management and seven staff," Mr. McMahon says. "Our goal in the next three to five years is to grow to between 25 to 35 captives and ten to 12 staff.

"We don't necessarily want to grow too big because we don't want to lose that one-on-one relationship we have with clients, which our clients really like.

"And we have a great team, a good, family-type environment in the office as well. When our clients visit they know everyone here. And that's the exciting part of the business," he adds, "dealing with the people."

In what is a very competitive local and international market, both men see opportunities for smaller, independent captive managers as clients become more circumspect in selecting service providers for their insurance needs.

Mr. McMahon continued: "There's a tremendous opportunity right now for independent captive managers.

"For the last number of years smaller companies in the US have been looking at setting up captives and they are also using smaller, more regional brokers who don't have the captive expertise and therefore need support in that area."

For Cedar Management existing links to those brokers make the possibility of taking advantage of this particular opportunity a little easier.

"CNA had a really good network of independent brokers that we can piggyback on," explains Mr. McMahon.

"Also with everything going on with the larger guys ? Marsh, Aon and so on ? clients are looking at whether one company should be doing everything for them, their broking, actuarial, management.

"A lot of clients have asked their people to check on all the fees that are being paid to the larger guys and exactly what is being done for them."

He adds that opportunity also exists from on going general trends in the captive management market. "Captives are getting more sophisticated now; there are lines of business and tools being used now that just weren't used ten years ago. Segregated accounts for example, using each cell for different underwriting years. These types of things just weren't being done until recently."

One trend for all entities in the financial services arena is increasing regulation which Mr. McMahon, like his peers, sees simply as a fact of business life.

"What we're going to see going forward is probably more regulation from the BMA (Bermuda Monetary Authority)," he says.

"For example the on-site inspections, this will be applied to some of the Class 4's (the largest, most highly capitalised insurance companies) first,and over time will expand to captive managers and individual captives."

"But the regulatory environment here is still very co-operative and approachable, which clients like," says Mr. Larkin who is the vice president of the company. "We had clients here just recently in fact and we sat down with the Supervisor (of Insurance from the BMA) to discuss an issue, which was resolved efficiently and to everyone's satisfaction."

"In fact clients are still bullish on Bermuda," adds Mr. McMahon. "Bermuda is the place everyone else is still trying to imitate."

The team will be presenting the company under its new name to a broader audience overseas for the first time when they attend the Captives Insurance Companies Association (CICA) International Conference in the US next month.

They will also participate in the inaugural Bermuda Captive Conference in September.

Mr. McMahon feels that launching at such an event here, which has been designed to focus in on issues of interest to captive owners, prospective owners and market professionals globally, is a clearly positive for Bermuda and the captive managers based in this jurisdiction.

"It's definitely a good move and will attract attention for everyone; we intend to be actively involved," he says.

As they currently work on the final touches in materials for branding and promoting the newly re-christened company, they are looking forward to growing the business while maintaining a high level of service.

"We sincerely believe that excellence in service is our hallmark," says Mr. McMahon. "We provide this through careful listening, proactive solutions and strong teamwork and partnership with our clients."