Barbados Captive Insurance Brochure

• Published date: 25 January 2024
• Subject Matter: Insurance, Insurance Laws and Products
• Law Firm: Invest Barbados
• Author: Invest Barbados

The Barbados Domicile

Barbados has had a long history of political and economic stability. Together with an excellent education system and sound infrastructure, it offers an attractive environment for global financial services and wealth management, ICT, medical schools, fintech, research and development, renewable energy and medicinal cannabis, in addition to captive insurance companies.

For decades, Barbados has been known as a domicile for captive insurance business, ranking among the top ten domiciles worldwide, according to Business Insurance. A sound business environment, favourable business solutions, facilitated through an expanding double taxation treaty network and the domicile's ability to respond to the needs of clients, are essential elements of the Barbados Business Brand. The introduction of new legislation and upgrades to current legislation are undertaken to improve Barbados' product mix and ensure that investors' needs are met.

Barbados has long-standing treaties with Canada, the UK and the USA. The country is also expanding its global business activity within Latin America and has treaties with Mexico, Panama and Venezuela. Barbados is at various stages of discussions for double taxation treaties with several other Latin American countries including Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Costa Rica. The country's recognition within Latin America, as a captive jurisdiction, continues to grow and the incorporated cell company is quite appealing to owners of the many privately held conglomerates in Latin America.

As of December 31, 2023, the Financial Services Commission (FSC) reported that there were 267 active captive insurance companies in Barbados with USA and Canada captives accounting for approximately 70% of the total number. In addition to the traditional property and casualty exposures, captives are also being used to ensure environmental liability, product recall, weather risk, intellectual property infringement rights and other business risks including disruptions caused by severe disease outbreaks like the coronavirus pandemic. Barbados continues to prove that it is well equipped to provide the captive insurance infrastructure to assist with navigating these realities.

Why Barbados for Insurance?

Barbados is a successful business centre that enables investors to enhance their global competitiveness. Following are the main advantages that make the jurisdiction attractive particularly for insurance businesses:

• Good infrastructure for...