Captives

The U.S. securities regulator has asked life insurers to disclose the potential cost of forcibly winding down in-house insurance units known as 'captives,' whose business model has come under regulatory radar, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Federal regulators showed they are paying attention at the state level even as state regulators want to be heard on the international level.

Companies are increasingly using captives as a long-term strategy to insulate themselves against commercial market-cycle volatility, rather than using captives as a shorter-term solution when rates harden, a new report says.

Guernsey licensed 46 international insurance companies to operate on the island in 2013s first half. These include limited insurance companies, protected cell captives and incorporated cells.

The Cayman Islands added 24 new captives in the first half of 2013, bringing the total number of licensed captives in the domicile to 750 as of June 30.

Reinsurance intermediary Guy Carpenter and catastrophe modeling firm Risk Management Solutions say they helped the Metropolitan Transportation Authority sell the first-ever bond to protect against storm surge.