Bermuda retained its lead as the world’s number one captive domicile in 2010 but newly formed captives are increasingly likely to set up in onshore US domiciles.Those were among the findings of report entitled ‘Trends and Performance 2011 Captive Benchmarking’, published yesterday by insurance broker and captive manager Marsh.The report shows that while overall new captive formations are down in most domiciles, including Bermuda, the 10 largest US onshore captive domiciles, with the exception of Arizona and Nevada, experienced growth in 2010.“The growth of US state domiciles highlights the trend of migration from offshore jurisdictions such as the British Virgin Islands, which saw the largest reduction in the number of captives - 66 - in 2010, to onshore locations,” said Michael Cormier, Marsh’s Global Captive Solutions practice leader.Marsh’s report examines the financial performance and other trends of captives from 2007 to 2010, a time of unprecedented economic challenges. It finds that although the number of active captives has remained relatively consistent, aggregate premium levels increased substantially across all geographies and most industry sectors.“In a period when the reinsurance and insurance markets continued to soften, and when many organisations struggled to just keep float, captive insurance companies performed exceedingly well,” Mr Cormier said. “Moreover, the financial stability and claims paying ability of captives generally improved during the four-year period.“This indicates that rather than using captives as a money-saving vehicle when traditional insurance costs rise, owners are viewing their captives as efficient and effective long-term risk management and risk financing solutions.”Likewise, the level of captive owners’ equity also increased despite lower investment returns, an indication that owners did not deplete capital during the economic downturn. The report focuses on activities of more than 750 captive insurance company clients of Marsh primarily single-parent captives based on figures as of December 2010.