A new insurance market conference to be held in Bermuda has sold out two months in advance.

The Bermuda Healthcare Forum, which takes place in March, has attracted 160 delegates.

Jereme Ramsay of the Bermuda Business Development Agency, the sponsor of the event, said: “Members of Bermuda’s healthcare risk-management sector met at BDA last year to discuss industry trends and exchange ideas.

“Through this collaboration, the idea to host a healthcare forum on-island was put forward and industry representatives have worked very hard to make the idea a reality.”

The conference, due to be held between March 15 and March 16, reached capacity within three months of registration opening last October.

Delegates include more than 100 from overseas along with a dozen accompanying guests.

The conference is aimed at buyers for major hospital systems, long-term care facilities physicians groups and health benefits and service providers in the North American market.

Mr Ramsay said: “The forum will present a great opportunity to bring brokers, insurance buyers and other risk professionals to the island and through collective engagement, competing industry partners here have been able to achieve shared success for both their respective companies and the jurisdiction as a whole.”

The conference, to be held at Rosewood Tucker’s Point, will be structured around eight themes designed to address the changing risk landscape in healthcare and feature a variety of industry participants describing how different companies are handling changes.

Lindsay Roos, senior vice-president and Bermuda placement specialist at Bowring Marsh, who is the event co-chairman, said: “Healthcare is moving to patient-centric care and the changes in reimbursement and integration of providers delivering care are revolutionising the industry.

“Healthcare providers are now responsible for the entire continuum of care and are delivering that through acquisitions, partnerships, joint ventures — and the web of these complex relationships drives the need to manage risk more than ever before.”

Ross Webber, chief executive officer of the BDA, will moderate a CEO panel at the conference, which will discuss why companies have domiciled in Bermuda and the benefits for healthcare clients of doing business on the island.

Bermuda is regarded as the market of choice for healthcare liability insurance buyers due to the amount of capacity available, a high standard of contract certainty and the ability to create new products in response to market needs.

Areas insured include hospitals, senior and long-term care homes, blood and organ banks, assisted living facilities, diagnostic centres, physicians groups and rehabilitation and research centres.

Bermudian-based global insurers are able to provide more than $350 million capacity for a single risk and can write lead and excess layers on an insurance programme.

The market has a solid track record of claims payments and has retained consistency through all market cycles, as well as providing substantive limits.