Bermuda has positioned itself to attract future clients from Latin America and elsewhere after a 20-member delegation attended the World Captive Forum in Florida.

The Island’s strong presence at the four-day event in Boca Raton was noted by many of the event’s 330 attendees, according to the Bermuda Business Development Agency (BDA), which led the ‘Team Bermuda’ contingent at the captive industry conference.

Bermuda had 11 guest speakers at the event, including Eduardo Fox, who heads the BDA’s Latin America Committee. He was on a panel discussing the expanding property/casualty captive market in Latin America.

“We had more participation this year from non-Latin business providers who were interested in Latin America, so we decided to have a bilingual session with translation — and it worked well,” said Mr Fox, who is also Appleby’s LatAm global manager.

“We had at least triple the size of the audience in 2015, and interest is growing. Some of the same delegates will be coming to the Bermuda Captive Conference in June, as well as to next year’s ALARYS forum in Bermuda, so interest was tremendous.”

Jereme Ramsay, the BDA’s business development manager for the risk sector, said: “We had several inquiries from Latin American audiences at this conference and also an uptick in interest from captives based in other jurisdictions.

“Captive owners were ‘shopping around,’ some with the intent to re-domicile from other centres, so it was really important that Bermuda was there. We are now actively pursuing these windows of opportunity.”

The 2015 conference was marking its 24th year. Bermuda had representatives from the Bermuda Monetary Authority, audit firms, brokers, legal entities, financial services providers and captive managers at the event, and hosted a welcome reception and operated an information booth.

“Bermuda’s remarkable presence was noted on several occasions by delegates,” said Mr Ramsay. “People frequently visited our booth to speak with local service providers and regulatory officials, and a lot of networking was done. It was good for Bermuda — having so many representatives there put the Island at the top of delegates’ minds.”

Daniel Message, of R&Q Quest Management Services, which was a founding partner of the event with Towers Watson, said: “It was pleasing to see such an excellent number of top-quality attendees, complemented by some of the highest-calibre speakers in the industry.

“A testament to its success was not only the number of returning attendees from prior years, but also the number of new faces.”

BDA conference and events manager Nicole Conrad Morrison, said: “We had a great deal of traffic at the booth and were able to highlight Bermuda and our brand.

“The BDA attends conferences to promote our jurisdiction and its offerings, but also to support our industry partners. The Bermuda booth becomes a central spot for Bermuda representatives to gather and do business.”