Bermuda can double its amount of insurance-related business with Latin American countries within the next two or three years — helping the Island to remain the world’s number one captive domicile.

That is the firm belief of Eduardo Fox, of Bermuda law firm Appleby, who spoke on Tuesday at what is thought to be the first Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) Conference session ever to target a Latin American audience.

Entitled “Captives in Latin America”, the session at New Orleans’ Ernest Morial Convention Center was conducted in Spanish, with translation into English and Portuguese. It focused on the advantages and practicalities of companies from the region using captive tools in risk financing.

Corporations set up wholly or partially-owned captives to provide them with insurance for their own activities — effectively a form of self-insurance.

Bermuda plays host to more captive insurers than any other domicile, although it is facing growing competition from the likes of the Cayman Islands, Barbados and a handful of US states, most notably Vermont.

Latin American business offers strong opportunities for the Island to maintain its captive dominance, according to Mr. Fox.

“We are talking about a market that has 400 million people and the eighth and ninth biggest economies in the world, Brazil and Mexico,” Mr. Fox said.

“Both of those countries are doing much better now financially and economically than they were ten years ago.

There are doors that can be opened for Bermuda, not just in insurance, but also trusts and funds. Bermuda Commercial Bank and Butterfield Bank have already had quite a bit of success in attracting business from Latin America.”

Business bonds between Bermuda and Latin America were strengthened markedly when the Island hosted the inaugural ALARYS Congress in 2004, where 26 countries were represented.

ALARYS is the Association of Latin American Risk Managers and is the region’s equivalent of RIMS. The group traditionally holds its annual general meeting at the RIMS conference and Bermuda is one of the venues under consideration for its 2008 congress.

The decision is expected this week.

One of Mr. Fox’s fellow panelists was Jorge Luzzi, president of ALARYS, who is also risk management director for the Pirelli Group.

Since the 2004 conference, several more South American captives have been established in Bermuda, including that of Colombian state oil giant Ecopetrol.

“The interest did not come only from Latin America,” Mr. Fox said. “We even got business from Russia as a result of that conference.”

In the past, barriers of both language and culture had hampered the flow of business from Hispanic nations, but things have changed.

“Ten years ago, language was a major problem,” said Mr. Fox, who was born in Mexico and has lived in Bermuda for 31 years. “With the new generation of executives, language is not necessarily the barrier that it once was.

“Business culture is also very important to Latin Americans. When two jurisdictions are competing and all things are equal, the Latins will give the business to the one they feel most comfortable with.”

Bermuda is a “one-stop shop” in terms of having the talent and infrastructure as a insurance and financial centre and “that appeals to the Latin Americans”, Mr. Fox said.

Also boosting Bermuda’s links with the region is the twice-a-week direct flight from Miami that was started two years ago by American Airlines. Two weeks ago, the airline announced plans to upgrade it to five times a week.

Most of the direct flights between the US and Latin America go through Miami.

“The Miami flight has helped enormously,” Mr. Fox said. “Just by the number of people I see, I would say the number of people travelling between Latin America and Bermuda has increased three-fold. Now they can get to Bermuda in one day and there’s less waiting time — and it’s cheaper.”

Although Mr. Fox has earned something of a reputation as being the Island’s unofficial Latin American trade ambassador, he is keen to underline that success is coming as a result of a team effort. He said the support of Government and some in the insurance and financial services industries had made progress possible.