Two year old initiatives to win recognition within North America's burgeoning healthcare risk management sector are succeeding, as the Bermuda insurance industry's strategic marketing campaign benefits from broader visibility.

Chairman of the marketing committee of the Insurance Advisory Committee, Roger Gillett, said that efforts which began in 1996, have now successfully established an awareness of the Bermuda market as a centre where healthcare risk management needs can be innovatively met.

There was evidence of that awareness at the recent annual ASHRM (American Society for Healthcare Risk Management) conference.

An increasing number of healthcare risk managers and intermediaries are acknowledging the Island's growing expertise for healthcare business.

This year's conference reception of Bermuda delegates was in stark contrast to the first ASHRM meeting they attended three years ago.

Mr. Gillett, who is a senior vice president with ACE Insurance, recalled, "We discovered then that we had a lot of work to do to establish ourselves in the minds of healthcare risk managers.'' Three years ago, a Bermuda market booth in the ASHRM exhibit hall attracted 200 risk managers.

"This year in San Diego,'' he said however, "more than 850 people stopped by the booth at ASHRM to talk to our captive insurance managers, lawyers, bankers and accountants.

"The over-riding impression we obtained from ASHRM '98 was that people in this business now know considerably more about us.'' He said the marketing committee's efforts had succeeded in raising the bar for Bermuda's healthcare insurance marketing campaign. The next phase of the drive will feature an increase in activities at ASHRM, which attracts 2,500 delegates a year.

More than 100 healthcare captives are based in Bermuda, and the number of new incorporations is growing -- just four in 1996, but 11 in 1997.

Bermuda Insurance Management Association president, Nicholas Dove, who was a presenter at the ASHRM conference, underscored the need for a high profile at the event.

President of local captive managers, Skandia International Risk Management Ltd., Mr. Dove stated, "I was very impressed with the general level of interest in the Bermuda insurance industry among healthcare risk management professionals at ASHRM.

"Bermuda needs to be represented at ASHRM and I think the IAC marketing committee has done an excellent job of establishing, and maintaining, Bermuda's profile at this important event.''