Bermuda is still the largest captive domicile in terms of gross premiums written, captive formations and rates of retention.

That is according to the Bermuda Monetary Authority's (BMA) research officer Traver Alexander, who was speaking about the Island's captive market to delegates at the Bermuda Captive Conference 2008 at the Fairmont Southampton yesterday.

Mr. Alexander was joined by colleague and assistant director of actuarial services at the BMA, Gina Smith, who talked about actuarial reporting and what the BMA is looking for in the reports, Brad Adderley, partner at Appleby, who spoke about ongoing compliance, and William Noonan, vice-president of risk management at Structure Tone Inc. who gave a risk manager's point of view on the regulatory situation.

He unveiled a research survey carried out by the BMA and the Bermuda International Business Association in the first part of this year, which revealed that Bermuda's captives wrote $21.9 billion of gross premiums in 2007 compared to $7.5 billion by the Cayman Islands captives.

In 2006 captives in Bermuda accounted for $21.5 billion in gross premiums written in contrast to $11.6 billion by their counterparts in Vermont. The survey also showed that retention rates remained high between 2003 and last year at 77 percent during both of those years, with the percentage of gross premiums written assumed from insurance carriers amounting to 35 percent during 2007, said Mr. Alexander.

Underlying risk insured by captives displayed more geographical diversity in Bermuda, with 57 percent from North America and 14 percent from Europe last year, while business written by Bermuda-based captives for 2007 was split mainly between casualty (59 percent) and property (44 percent).

"To sum up, the Bermuda captive domicile remains the largest in terms of gross written premiums, in captive formations and high rates of retention and it has growing geographic diversity in location of risk," said Mr. Alexander. "Casualty leads property in terms of insurance coverage by captives and there are strong balance sheet positions with two-thirds of assets in cash and quoted investments."