Reinsurance Focus

Following are selected bills in the captive insurance and reinsurance areas that have been recently introduced in the state legislatures:

• H.B. 314 proposes to amend Delaware’s captive insurance company laws by adding two new forms of captive insurance companies, “agency captive insurance companies” and “branch captive insurance companies,” to those that can currently be licensed in Delaware. In an agency captive structure, the insurance risk on policies is reinsured to the agency captive, thereby allowing the agents or brokers that placed the policies to share in the profits or losses attributable to these policies. Branch captive insurance companies are divisions of offshore captives that establish a business unit onshore. These new forms of captive insurance companies are intended to enhance the economic development potential of Delaware’s captive insurance laws. The bill also makes a technical change to the delinquency provisions applicable to sponsored captive insurance companies. The bill was introduced in the Delaware House of Representatives on January 26, 2010, and it was assigned on the same day to the Economic Development/Banking/Insurance/Commerce Committee. The following day the bill was reported out of committee favorably in the Delaware House of Representatives.

• H.B. 305 proposes to amend Maryland’s domestic reinsurance law requirements for various purposes, including: (i) specifying an assessment fee payable by specified domestic reinsures to the Maryland Insurance Commissioner; (ii) exempting domestic reinsurers from a requirement to have an office in the State; (iii) requiring domestic reinsurers to keep specified assets in the State; and (iv) authorizing domestic reinsurers to keep their general ledger account records outside the State under specified circumstances. The bill was introduced in the Maryland House of Representatives on January 27, 2010.

This post written by Karen Benson.