Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
caribbeannetnews.com

Lloyd's insurer expects to complete Bermuda move by December

Thursday, October 26, 2006

by: Ben Livesey

England (Bloomberg), LONDON: Hiscox Plc, a Lloyd's of London insurer drawn by Bermuda's zero percent tax rates and lighter regulation than in Europe, said it will be incorporated there in December.

The London-based insurer has established a new Bermuda-based company, Hiscox Ltd, it said in a statement Monday. The reorganization will take effect on December 12, subject to shareholder approval, Hiscox said. Investors will receive one share of the Bermuda company for each share held in the London-based company.

Hiscox, Amlin Plc and other insurers have raised billions of dollars for reinsurance units in Bermuda that are subject to lower taxes and looser regulation. Two-thirds of Hiscox business is generated outside the UK, chairman Robert Hiscox said in September, when the company reported its first-half results.

"As the major issues and risks are expected increasingly to arise in Hiscox's Bermudian and US businesses," Hiscox's decision-making base needs to be close to those markets, the company said.

Hiscox set up a Bermudian reinsurance unit last year and a specialist US underwriting division in New York. A "significant proportion" of its international underwriting, currently based at the London market, is also generated in the US, the company said.

US operations accounted for 36 percent of gross premium revenue in 2005.

The move to Bermuda "isn't expected" to impact the company's dividend policy, the company said in the statement, which coincided with a prospectus on the new company being sent to shareholders.

Shares of the new company will be traded on the main London stock market.

Print Page