BF&M Ltd. has expanded its global reach with the launch a new satellite information technology centre in Nova Scotia - the insurance company's first such office in Canada.

The insurer, which had contracted work out to the office for almost five years, decided to take over the operation itself. John Wight, president and CEO of BF&M, travelled to Bedford to officially open the new facility last Thursday, following the visit of Nova Scotia' Premier Rodney MacDonald to Bermuda a few weeks ago.

The centre has grown its workforce from two, when it started up in 2004, to 25 employees today and was recently acquired by BF&M's new Canadian division, BF&M Canada Ltd.

Mr. Wight said that being based in Nova Scotia meant BF&M would be able to tap into a highly skilled IT workforce and store its data in a safe and accessible place, away from the threat of hurricanes and tropical storms. Other advantages included the favourable exchange rate of the Canadian dollar, according to Mr. Wight.

"It all started back in 2004 when we were looking for an off-site location for business recovery," he said.

"We look at Halifax as our back-up site and since then we have discovered that is is very difficult to hire well-qualified information systems people locally. Rather than have overseas workers move to Bermuda to work for BF&M, it made sense to look at a jurisdiction that had a pool of well-qualified information systems people.

"Since then we have developed the office, initially contracting out work to another company.

"In 2008 we decided that because the operation had grown to the size it had and the strategy of the business, it made sense to take on ownership of it ourselves."

Bedford operations manager Paul Matthews said that the Nova Scotia site serves as an emergency back-up operation for the insurer in cases of natural disasters.

"A hurricane can quickly knock out the company's Bermuda computers and servers," he said. The Bedford site also provides a full range of information technology services.