Is The Bahamas an international insurance center?

Category: Insurance

Answer:

In recent years, there has been a resurgence in interest in The Bahamas as an international insurance centre. There are a number of reasons for this:

• The introduction of insurance legislation incorporating innovative features unique to The Bahamas
• Increasingly restrictive insurance regulation in many onshore jurisdictions
• The high cost of conducting insurance business - both onshore and in some of the other offshore insurance centres
• Changes in onshore tax laws (notably in the US and Canada) that have removed most of the remaining tax advantages of offshore trusts and corporations
• The continuing need for new products for the very substantial Bahamian banking and trust community

In response to this interest, the Bahamas Government and private sector have made available 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.