Telling the story of leadership

On his return from the RIMS conference in San Francisco, the Hon David Burt, Bermuda’s Premier, had the following message for Bermuda:Re+ILS.

Bermuda is ready, willing and more than capable of being the centre of climate risk finance.

I was pleased to lead the delegation comprising the ‘Bermuda Triangle’—the legislature, regulator (the Bermuda Monetary Authority [BMA]), and industry (the Association for Bermuda Insurers & Reinsurers)—to the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS) annual conference in San Francisco, in April. RIMS is the world’s largest community dedicated to advancing risk management which Bermuda has been proud to attend for over 35 years.

Riskworld—RIMS’ first major in-person event since 2019—brought together more than 10,000 attendees from over 70 countries, 400 exhibitors from across the globe, and more than 300 speakers.

Our presence as one delegation was a testament to the consistent and invaluable collaboration between the three sides of the Bermuda Triangle, which enables us to adapt quickly to the market, to the needs of the client, and not to stand in the way of innovation. This collaboration is also a key part of what makes Bermuda such a well-respected jurisdiction in international business.

Our aim at RIMS was to continue to tell Bermuda’s story of leadership in reinsurance and to share our advances in technology and climate resilience. Our message was a reminder that Bermuda remains the risk capital globally, thanks to our world-renowned regulatory regime and our ability to continually innovate and evolve.

As RIMS took place in close proximity to Silicon Valley this year, we took the opportunity to visit technology leaders and venture capitalists to discuss Bermuda’s leading tech innovation, in the areas of fintech and insurtech regulation.

We are proud to be a pioneer in this regard as one of the first countries in the world to enact comprehensive legislation, such as the Digital Asset Business Act (2018); the Digital Asset Issuance Act (2020)—formerly the ICO regime under the Registrar of Companies; the Insurance Amendment Act; and the Bermuda Monetary Authority Act (1969), which was amended in 2019 to put in place an innovation hub for financial institutions.

This is an example of how Bermuda continues to establish itself as a global technology hub, driven by the government’s forward thinking, supported by a world-respected regulator in the BMA, and nurtured by local and international industries working together in close collaboration.

“Bermuda can play a central role in helping high-risk regions bolster their financial resilience to the rising tide of climate peril.” The Hon David Burt, Premier of Bermuda

The climate capital

We emphasised that Bermuda aims to become the world’s climate risk finance capital, addressing critical needs in key markets and closing the global climate risk protection gap, while creating new economic growth opportunities for our island and our local economy.

As we have with tropical storms, wildfires, floods and other climate-driven insured risks, Bermuda can play a central role in helping high-risk regions bolster their financial resilience to the rising tide of climate peril and play a leading role in climate risk finance.

We are the single most important property catastrophe re/insurance market in the world, a premier captive domicile, and the leading issuer of insurance-linked securities (ILS)—all in one market. Since 1997, Bermuda’s commercial re/insurers have paid out more than half a trillion dollars to policyholders and cedants in the US, the EU and the UK.

The climate vertical complements Bermuda’s globally recognised strengths in re/insurance, ILS, and professional services. This strength can be attributed to our decades of resulting investment in human capital, business expertise and innovation culture.

Additionally, Bermuda has a wealth of climate change-related risk experts already located here, including scientists in the public and third sectors. The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS) has a history of supporting and working alongside the re/insurance sector—in 1994, BIOS established the Risk Prediction Initiative, which is a collaboration of BIOS scientists and re/insurance experts.

The trend towards environmental, social and corporate governance (ESG) issues is a top priority in the business world today, and Bermuda continues to encourage progress in ESG from all sides. This is again where the ‘Bermuda Triangle’ of the government, the regulator and the industry work as a team and move in the same direction through a consultative and collaborative approach that is vital to continuing to make progress. There is a rising wave of innovations in this area and I am confident that Bermuda will be at the forefront of its developments and innovation as we always have been.

We look forward to continuing on this journey with the international business community to ensure that when anyone talks about climate finance, they are talking about Bermuda too.