New Capital Adequacy Model For Bermuda Nears

The government unit in charge of Bermuda's insurance industry is putting finishing touches on a new risk-based model to analyze insurers' capital adequacy, an official said.

Jeremy Cox, supervisor of insurance for the Bermuda Monetary Authority, told last week's National Association of Insurance Commissioners catastrophe conference in Miami that the new model should be ready for review in the next few weeks.

“The island has a long-standing reputation for its rigorous 'know-your-customer' procedures,” Mr. Cox said.

Converging capital adequacy standards for the insurance and investment banking sectors have led to a new layer of scrutiny for the large reinsurance companies based on the island, he said.

The search for alternative forms of capital for both sectors has resulted in the proliferation of reinsurance sidecars and catastrophe bonds that has also led to new regulatory challenges, Mr. Cox said.

“There is a general overall thinking being applied to evaluating risk in the insurance industry,” Mr. Cox said.

Primary insurers, along with modeling and rating agencies are key players in seeking transparency and capital adequacy in the reinsurance industry. “Security and overall quality has never been more critical,” he said.

Bermuda today supplies 40 percent of the property-catastrophe reinsurance to the U.S. “But there is also a growing casualty market and the island is becoming important in the large commercial risk market at the primary level,” he said.

Today Bermuda hosts 12 of the top 40 reinsurers, Mr. Cox said, quoting Standard & Poor's figures.

“Buying behavior is changing within the wider context of the global reinsurance market with primary insurers seeking less concentration of cessions among reinsurers and even greater risk diversification,” he said.

Risk securitization has also grown in favor, not only in pure numbers for catastrophe risks but also for third-party credit liability, trade credit and auto insurance risk, Mr. Cox said.