Ireland is a thriving global hub for reinsurance and captive insurance firms.

Reinsurance is the process by which insurance firms reduce the risk of large claims by ‘reinsuring’ some of their insurance book with a third party. This allows insurance firms to provide a wider breadth of insurance policies than the may otherwise have been able to. The concept of reinsurance is not new, with origins dating back to the Great Fire of Hamburg in 1852. The Irish reinsurance market is the second largest reinsurance market in Europe and growing.

Insurance Ireland works to promote and maintain the strength of this industry within Europe and beyond by advocating on the industry’s behalf and highlighting areas that particularly impact this sector.

Captive insurance entities operate as an effective risk management tool to manage the total cost of risk by providing insurance or reinsurance cover for risks of the entity to which it belongs.Since the inception of the IFSC in 1987 Ireland has been a leading domicile for captive insurance companies. In addition to representing a number of self-managed captive insurance firms, Insurance Ireland are proud to represent the Irish arm of two of the largest captive managers in the world, namely Marsh and Aon.

Insurance Ireland believes that there are growth opportunities in this area of insurance. We believe that the specialist insurance market in Ireland offers potential for further development and we work to ensure that the unique nature of captive insurance firms is appropriately considered in our interactions with policymakers domestically, in Europe and globally.