A 175-year-old American Bank out of Detroit, Michigan, has been involved in Bermuda’s captive insurance industry since the last century.

The regional Comerica Bank with 413 branches in five states, is part of Comerica Incorporated, the American financial services company, headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

This year, the Cincinnati-based Fifth Third Bancorp closed its merger with Comerica Incorporated to create the ninth-largest US bank with approximately $294 billion in assets,” Fifth Third said in February.

“The combination of Fifth Third’s award-winning retail banking and digital capabilities with Comerica’s strong middle market banking franchise and attractive footprint further strengthens Fifth Third’s stability, profitability and growth potential.”

For many years, the face of Comerica for Bermuda clients, and throughout the captive insurance industry, has been that of Martin Ellis, the bank’s senior vice-president in the International Finance Department.

In Bermuda this week for the Bermuda Captive Conference, he commented: “This is one of the best conferences. It is always great to come to Bermuda.”

He added: “I know captives are expanding into new lines like cyber, so we are there to help. The fronting carriers need collateral and we provide that in the form of letters of credit.”