Captive insurance buyout

An acquisition has taken place in the expanding captive insurance market in Barbados. MCaptive International, a publication dedicated to the global news about the captive market, reported that SRS, the world’s largest independent insurance company manager, had bought Barbados-registered segregated cell company Global Re SCC.

Established in 2004 with a Class 1 licence, Global Re SCC engages in general insurance business and long-term insurance, including ordinary life insurance.

According to the report, the company will join other cell facilities offered by SRS in Bermuda, Cayman, Guernsey, North Carolina, and Vermont. SRS Barbados managing director Kirk Cyrus will oversee its integration of the locally registered global business company into the SRS operations.

According to Cyrus: “Our acquisition of Global Re SCC represents the addition of yet another solution for SRS’s rent-a-captive clients as well as for capital market investors looking to participate in reinsurance programmes.

“The hardening commercial market has stimulated an interest in alternative risk solutions, and this deal furthers our Barbados and groupwide objective of providing every available tool to our clients to have a strong negotiating position within the market.”

Barbados in recent years has become an attractive market for captive insurance companies and the island is now ranked 7th in the world for captive insurance companies registered here.

Captive insurance is an insurance company that is wholly owned and controlled by its insured. Its primary purpose is to insure the risks of the owners, while the insured benefits from the underwriting profits. It is essentially self-insurance. (IMC1)