Bermuda is the perfect market for Latin American companies to set up their captives, ALARYS president Jorge Luzzi has said ahead of the organisation's conference in October.

The Island will be hosting the event at the Fairmont Southampton with about 200 attendees including representatives of some of the biggest companies in Brazil, Mexico and Argentina expected.

In an exclusive interview with The Royal Gazette, Mr. Luzzi said the number of captives set up by Latin American firms in Bermuda had grown from 10 at the time of the first ALARYS (Latin American Risk and Insurance Management Association) conference held here in 2004 to 50 today, with the market to grow to at least 250.

The event will also feature representatives from the Risk and Insurance Management Society (RIMS), The Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA) and The Federation of Asia Pacific and African Risk Management Organisations (FAPARMO), as well as risk management and re/insurance clients and buyers.

The delegation included Mr. Luzzi, who is also chair of The International Federation of Risk and Insurance Management (IFRIMA) and the group risk director of Pirelli Group, Italy, and Javier Mirabel, executive director of ALARYS, as well as Jill Husbands, ALARYS Bermuda 2010 Conference chair and Tom McMahon, president of Bermuda Insurance Management Association (BIMA). They met with officials from the Ministry of Finance and Shelby Weldon, director of licensing and authorisations at the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), last week to discuss the conference.

Mr. Luzzi said that Bermuda had the advantage of being close to Latin America and its captive industry was becoming even more important than before, while its insurance market had withstood the economic crisis well and was not subject to such tight regulation as some other jurisdictions.

"At the moment, when the world is in crisis, some parts are doing the opposite, with Bermuda and other regions actually growing," he said.

He said that having grown the number of Latin American captives on the Island five-fold over the past six years, there was still room for expansion.

Among the key selling points of the jurisdiction along with the captive market were reinsurance capacity and the expertise for Latin American companies to tap into, said Mr. Luzzi.

"In a way it is easy for Latin America to work with Bermuda than other markets," he said.

Describing it as a "win-win" situation for both sides, Mr. Luzzi said that Bermuda's Government and regulators were doing their utmost to facilitate Latin American business, with Premier Ewart Brown visiting the 2008 ALARYS conference in Buenos Aires to show his support.

He said that Government had also been proactive in easing the immigration process for the Latin American contingent and, in his capacity as Tourism Minister, Dr. Brown had managed to secure the Miami to Bermuda flight route after the last ALARYS conference held here, opening up the gateway to Latin America.

"I believe that there is a lot to do in relation to growing links in the reinsurance market," he said. "Captives are still growing, but are underdeveloped at the moment and we believe that there is a lot to do in this field."

Mr. Mirabel said that Bermuda's recent agreement of terms on a bilateral tax information exchange treaty with Brazil and signing of a tax information exchange agreement with Mexico in October last year had helped to open up business between the countries.

Meanwhile, he added that the Island's reputation as a leading offshore jurisdiction had also appealed to many Latin American companies.

Mr. McMahon said: "BIMA is so happy to welcome our friends from ALARYS to the island and certainly very happy that they have chosen Bermuda for the conference this year and we have been working extremely hard to ensure that the conference will be a big success.

"Latin America is certainly an emerging market for captives and as the leading domicile for captives, I think Bermuda has an obligation to help Latin America develop its captive sector and we certainly look forward to working with our colleagues in Latin America in the future."