Bahamas Insurance

The insurance industry in The Bahamas is divided into two distinctly separate markets:

Domestic Market - insurance of local risks by locally-owned or foreign-owned insurers

International [Captive] Market -  the insurance of foreign risks by foreign-owned insurers working through The Bahamas

The domestic market is surprising large for a country with little more than 300,000 people. There are several local and foreign-owned insurers. Business is written directly, or through a variety of brokers and agents.

Life insurance is dominated by subsidiaries of Canadian and US companies. A growing percentage of the market is controlled by Bahamian-owned companies, with UK companies accounting for the balance.

Property insurance is provided predominantly by British companies. There is only one Bahamian-owned company in this category.

Captive Insurance

The growth of the insurance industry in the Bahamas was spawned by a 1970 law that allows companies to conduct part, or all, of their business out of the country, while still benefiting from local tax advantages.

The recent resurgence of the Bahamas as an international insurance center is due to the Bahamas Government and private sector working together to create the requisite legal, regulatory and professional infrastructure to facilitate both the rapidly growing offshore life insurance sector, as well as the reestablishment of The Bahamas as a captive insurance centre.

This encouragement has led to the growth of the "captive" insurance market, created to insure or reinsure the risks of offshore companies. Supervisory jurisdiction is provided by the Ministry of Finance, Registrar of Insurance Companies.