So far in 2017, the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) has issued 23 new insurance company licenses, including 20 Class B licenses—11 of which may conduct third-party business—and 3 Class C licenses. In 2014, 2015 and 2016, CIMA issued 23, 22 and 39 new insurance company licenses respectively.

        Under the Cayman Islands insurance law, Class B licenses are mainly for captive insurance companies, including pure captives, segregated portfolio companies, group captives, association captives, special purpose vehicles, open-market insurance companies and rental captive companies.

         Class C licenses cover vehicles that provide reinsurance for insurance-linked securities such as catastrophe bonds, sidecars, collateralized reinsurance or similar instruments.

        Key figures on the CIMA website show that as of June 30, 2017, there were 730 registered insurance companies, including 29 Class A (domestic) companies, 673 Class B companies, 25 Class C companies and 3 Class D (commercial insurance) companies.

        Under the Cayman Islands insurance law, CIMA issues the following categories of insurance licenses:

        Class A insurance company license—permits a local or a foreign insurance company to carry on domestic insurance business or limited reinsurance business approved by the Monetary Authority;

        Class B insurance company license—permits an exempted insurance company to carry on the following categories of non-domestic insurance business:

      (1) at least 95% of net premiums originate from business related to the insurance company;

      (2) cases where more than 50% of net premium income originates from business related to the insurance company;

      (3) cases where less than 50% of net premium income originates from business related to the insurance company.

        Class C insurance company license—permits an exempted insurance company to carry on reinsurance business related to the issuance of various bonds, various contracts and other fund mechanisms approved by the Monetary Authority.

        Class D insurance company license—permits an insurance company to carry on reinsurance business and other individual business authorized and approved by the Monetary Authority.

Source: Cayman Islands Monetary Authority