Vermont Report Provides Insights into Domicile's Captive Activity

Newly released statistics by the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation provide a wide array of details on the nation's largest domestic captive insurance company domicile, which is celebrating its 40th anniversary this year.

For example, Vermont captives generated just over $30 billion in gross written premiums in 2020, the second highest premium volume in those 40 years, topped only in 2009 when the domicile's captive insurance companies wrote more than $77 billion in gross written premiums.

In addition, the 38 new captives that were licensed in 2020 is the highest number licensed in a year since 2011 when 41 captives were licensed in Vermont.

In looking at Vermont's 589 captive insurance companies at the end of 2020 by industry, the largest number of captives—103—were sponsored by parents in the healthcare industry, with 101 sponsored by manufacturing companies.

The analysis also found that in 2020, 157 Vermont captives wrote less than $1 million in gross written premiums, 129 had between $1 million and $5 million in gross written premiums, and 66 had between $5 million and $10 million in gross written premiums.

At the top end, 10 Vermont-domiciled captive insurance companies had more than $500 million in gross written premiums in 2020, 36 had between $100 million and $500 million in gross written premiums, and 44 had between $50 million and $100 million.

By captive type, at the end of 2020, the most captives—377—were pure captives, followed by 87 risk retention groups, and 39 special purpose captives.

In all, Vermont has licensed 1,197 captives since 1981.