Bumper Year For New Guernsey Captives

More new captives were registered in Guernsey during 1996, than in any year previously. In all, forty new captive insurance companies had their applications approved to establish in Europe's largest captive domicile.

The overall net gain was 28 new companies, with twelve existing companies being wound up. Interestingly, none of these latter companies have ceased operations as a result of the new UK Budget changes to Controlled Foreign Companies, according to Steve Butterworth, Superintendent of Insurance Business at the Guernsey Financial Services Commission. There has been much debate during 1996 as to if, or how these CFC changes by the UK Government might dissuade businesses from forming new captives or encourage the winding up of certain types of existing captive. The pessimists appear to have been proved wrong based upon these latest figures. In other European captive domiciles, such as Dublin, Luxembourg and the Isle of Man, 1996 was a generally a disappointing year in terms