Source: www.captiveliveuk.com
Aftermath – PKF ? Promoting captive insurance in London
The two day Captive Live UK conference was held on the 12th and 13th of this month at a prestige centre located at No 8 Northumberland Avenue and was sponsored by Barclays¸ Qatar Guernsey¸ FinanceMalta¸ Wells Fargo¸ Robus¸ PKF¸ Kane and others. Each jurisdiction featured its best case scenario to attract insurers by offering presentations¸ case studies and unique selling points expertly discussed in various panels. Delegates were welcomed by Thomas Stepenson from Robus Gibraltar who gave a brief overview of the industry and the challenges facing captive insurance managers in particular with the arrival of Solvency 11 regulation expected to start by 2016. On the first day¸ Mr George Mangion¸ Senior Partner PKF Malta and Risk Management Service (Malta) Ltd¸ presented a speech entitled “The Prudent Captive Climb” wherein he highlighted the fact that Malta is the only EU member state to offer comprehensive legislation on both PCC and ICC vehicles. George was then joined by Justin Wallen (MD Robus Group)¸ Clive James (Group Chief Operating Officer Kane) and John Rowson (Head Aon Risk Solutions) who formed a jurisdiction panel discussing the “Rise of cell companies: Are ICCs and PCCs the smarter ART vehicles”.
Other topics covered at this two day event included the Solvency II which implementation has yet again been postponed. This framework has been receiving an array of reactions from both EU and non?EU jurisdictions and has attracted the attention of many high profiled attendees. Opportunities and challenges facing captives were discussed together with taxation¸ risk management and regulatory issues.
Although the competition in the Captive Industry is vast¸ Malta has gradually and steadily developed into a premier financial centre hosting plenty financial services firms¸ mainly insurance companies¸ banks and fund administrations. All this is evidenced by a number of Fortune 100 companies which have captives in Malta with numerous companies from across the world and in numerous sectors being looked after by the country’s insurance managers. The global names of Aon¸ Marsh¸ Willis¸ Heritage¸ JLT and Heath Lambert can be found in competitive convoy coexisting with the indigenous insurance management companies.
This conference served as an ideal platform to showcase Malta as an island ready to act at the next flow of applicants wishing to use its tax efficient and well tested legislation which as a bonus will bear the hallmark of a fully compliant Solvency 11 country. Infact¸ PKF launched a Country by Country Report which aimed at informing readers about the Captive Insurance market from a domicile by domicile perspective. It sought to reflect the outlook of each country and to put forward recommendations for better functioning of the legal framework. The main feature of this publication is the qualitative research on the performance of each domicile backed by a constructive critical analysis of the global market. PKF believes that the Maltese Captive market still offers considerable¸ yet untapped opportunities that could make a real difference to the market players and these