George Town, Grand Cayman, 13 March 2018

A recent story in Newsday (Celeste Hadrick, 8 March 2018) sends a distorted message about the reason for captive insurance companies to have annual board meetings in the Cayman Islands.

This best practice has been established over Cayman’s 40+ year history in the industry to ensure that the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (the Regulator), the service providers and the Boards of Directors can collectively address any material issues of relevance to the captive. These meetings cover important matters that require attention such as regulation, corporate governance, capital requirements, investments, audits, reserving actuarial, deductibles, reinsurance brokerage and other matters of relevance. The roles and responsibilities of Directors continue to change as Cayman presses forward as a leader in the adaptation of international reporting and regulatory standards and therefore the obligations of the Directors are ever more onerous.

Chairwoman of the Insurance Managers Association of Cayman Erin Brosnihan responded to the article by saying: “Good practice states that hospital boards meet in Cayman at least once a year. However as managers, we are very careful as to ensure we maximize the time of all captive Directors while they are here, as we are highly cognizant and respectful of the responsibility and duty of care hospital stakeholders have when working on captives on behalf of their hospitals, whether they are for-profit or not-for-profit”.

The article also tries to align Director’s meetings with Thanksgiving, but it may be more likely that the travel dates were around the annual Cayman Captive Forum, which is always held in the last week of November or the first week of December. This Forum is the largest captive insurance conference in the world and is well-recognized for providing participants with relevant industry updates and best-practices covering many areas including cyber-security, investing and governance, and the sessions are valid for continuing education credits.

The Cayman Islands is an international insurance centre, specialising in captive insurance, ILS structuring and reinsurance products. Cayman has a 40 year-plus history in international insurance products including captive insurance, insurance linked securities (ILS) structures and re-insurance. The Cayman Islands has built a solid foundation of legal and regulatory infrastructure as well as an entire industry of quality service providers including managers, accountants, underwriters, lawyers and bankers to support the industry.

For more information on IMAC visit www.caymancaptive.ky.