Randall & Quilter sees it Bermuda operation as the growth centre of its global business following its decision to redomicile to Bermuda from the UK nearly a year ago.

The group’s chief financial officer Tom Booth told The Royal Gazette that the company is happy with its first ten months as a Bermuda-based group and thinks the prospects for increasing its 20-strong workforce are good.

Two months ago, the company moved into a larger office on the second floor of the FB Perry Building on Church Street to accommodate the expanding operation.

The group, which describes itself as a specialist non-life insurance investor, underwriting manager, captive manager and service provider, employs a staff of around 350 spread across locations in the UK, US, Gibraltar, Norway, and Canada.

It has a diverse business, which includes managing companies and portfolios in run-off, managing captives, some “live” underwriting, and other specialist services for insurers.

“Regulatory certainty and business reasons were the reasons for Randall & Quilter coming here — it was nothing to do with tax,” Mr Booth said in an interview. “Our tax base is still in the UK.

“Being here has helped us gain access to captive management and run-off opportunities. Bermuda has a great supply of intellectual capital in the insurance industry and we like the innovative ideas in terms of different business models that work well with us.”

On the regulatory side, he said Randall & Quilter was working toward getting financial regulator the Bermuda Monetary Authority to be its worldwide group supervisor.

He added that one of the Island’s regulatory attractions was the “third-country equivalence” Bermuda earned under the European Union’s Solvency II insurance regulation regime. Some industry observers had speculated that rival jurisdictions who did not apply for equivalence might gain a competitive advantage over Bermuda. That was not how Randall & Quilter thought about it.

“We did not want to go a jurisdiction that did not have Solvency II equivalence — we did not go to Guernsey or Cayman because of that,” Mr Booth said. “We do a lot of business in Europe and being in a jurisdiction that did not have equivalence could have complicated things.

“Also the BMA is widely respected by European regulators and that is very helpful to us.”

Randall & Quilter established an operation in Bermuda in 2008, when it set up Class 3 insurer R&Q Re and later that year acquired Quest — at the time the Island’s second largest independent captive manager — in a deal valued at just under $7 million.

The group’s live underwriting interests are centred on the Lloyds market, where its R&Q Managing Agency Ltd manages Syndicate 1991, which started up for business in 2013 and has nearly doubled its capacity for this year to £150 million.

R&Q’s insurance investments division deals with its run-off interests across the world, in countries including Finland, France, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Cayman, the UK and the US. Last year, it also acquired Flagstone Alliance Insurance and Reinsurance, the Cyprus-based operations of former Bermuda reinsurer Flagstone Re.

In the insurance services division, Mr Booth said about half the revenues came from managing the group’s own companies in run-off and the half from third parties.