Bermuda will be promoted as the future home of health care risk management at a conference next week in the United Sates.

The Chairman of the marketing committee of the Insurance Advisory Committee - a body which advised the Bermuda Government - Roger Gillet is travelling to an international conference to highlight the innovation that risk managers and other insurance buyers find on the Island.

He will be in Chicago at the conference of the American Society for the Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM).

Mr. Gillet said: "We have already seen a number of health care risk managers who recognise the importance of Bermuda in the insurance industry and who understand the many advantages of a Bermuda captive.

Bermuda is home to around 100 health care captives. These companies represent a small section of the Island's insurance business which includes the largest captive insurance market in the world. Local captive insurance managers and professionals servicing the captive insurance market, together with a representative from the Registrar of Companies, will also be travelling to the conference which begins today. There will also be a Bermuda exhibit which gives details about the industry on the Island.

More than 2000 risk managers are expected to attend the ASHRM conference, which is the largest health care event of its kind in the world.

Bermuda will also host clients and potential clients at a reception during the event.

A captive is an insurance company subsidiary, usually formed to insure or reinsure the risks of the parent business and its affiliates. Some captives also insure risks that are not related to their parent organisation.

Captives can be used as part of an overall risk management approach and can help reduce the cost of insurance programmes by avoiding commercial insurers' administrative overheads and recapturing underwriting profits and investment income that would have otherwise have gone outside the company.