ANAHEIM, California -- Bermuda's position in the captive insurance industry could not have been made clearer over the past few days at the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) Conference.

While there has been interest in rival domiciles, which have set up exhibition booths here, it has been nowhere near as evident as it has been at the Bermuda booth, where people have been lining up to learn more about the Island and its services.

Bahamas, for instance, reported that most visitors to its booth were more interested in the island as a possible holiday destination, rather than a place to do business.

Mr. Charles Donaldson, president of Captive Managers Ltd. in Nassau, and former commissioner of Insurance, said the Bahamas has been struggling to regain its credibility as an insurance centre since 1968 when approximately 200 captive companies moved their operations to Bermuda after the Government of Bahamas levied a one percent tax on insurance company premiums.

Though the Government has since repealed that law, the Bahamas, Mr. Donaldson maintains, has dropped off the map as far as domiciles go.

"We are trying to re-emerge,'' he said. "The problem is we have not been able to change the perception that the Bahamas is not the place to go to do business.

"We see that we have to be very innovative and come up with something that makes the industry look at us as a domicile. We are looking for new products and new faces.'' Even Bermuda-based insurers, he said, have subsidiaries in almost all the other offshore domiciles except for the Bahamas. But Mr. Donaldson warned that Bermuda's captive companies could up and leave the Island as quickly as they left the Bahamas if Bermuda overprices itself or if there is any sort of unrest.

With more than 1,320 insurance companies registered at the end of 1991, Bermuda is by far the world's leading domicile. Gross premiums written by all Bermuda-based insurers totaled more than $13 billion in 1990, an increase of nearly nine percent over the previous year.

Bermuda's closest rival is Cayman, which had 31 new incorporations in 1991, bringing its total to more than 350 captives.

Mr. Tom Clark, of the Cayman Insurance Managers Association, said Cayman had been able to maintain its growth in 1991, despite a less than ideal market.

Cayman, like Bermuda, is staging its own captive insurance conference from June 3-5 next year. Organisers say they are hoping to attract as many as 200 participants.

A brochure on the conference, which aims to increase awareness of Cayman as a captive domicile shows there are already 18 speakers secured from the US, Cayman and London.

Barbados reported it had already seen seven new captive formations this year.

Barbados had 10 new formations for the year 1991, bringing its total number to about 220 registered captives.

Mr. Wayne Fields, a partner at Coopers and Lybrand in Bridgetown, said there was a lot of work underway to lift the Barbados image as a domicile, adding that he believed the island's professional structure was on an equal footing with Cayman and Bermuda.

"But we cannot take away from the fact that Bermuda is a leader in the business,'' Mr. Fields said. "It will always be considered by any new clients looking to establish a captive insurance company.'' A virtual newcomer to the business, the Turks and Caicos Islands have been hard at work here to establish their name in the industry. This year marks just the second year the Turks have had a booth at RIMS, and island representatives say there has been some genuine interest.

Mr. Reg Bodhanya, a resident partner of the financial services organisation Morris Cottingham, said that although the Turks and Caicos have been in the business for the last 10 years, they have only been regulated for two years, with the introduction of the Insurance Ordinance in 1989, followed by the Insurance Regulations 1990 an the appointment of a superintendent of insurance.

Mr. Andrew Newlands, managing director of Anchor Trust Corporation Ltd. on Grand Turk, said the Government is looking to attract some banks to open offices on Grand Turk, including possibly the Bank of Bermuda or the Bank of N.T. Butterfield.

"Right now we are really just trying to get exposure,'' Mr. Bodhanya said, adding it was hurt previously because it did not have the proper regulations in place.

"The fact that we participated in RIMS in 1991 brought us to a level of maturity we hadn't reached before. We are now getting a name for ourselves and trying to build momentum.'' Exposure, they said, has been helped by tourism which has increased by approximately 500 percent in the last five years.