Growing interest for ‘onshore’ PCC use

05/11/2009

Four new fronting cells have been licensed within Aon’s White Rock Insurance Malta and Gibraltar protected cell companies (PCCs) within the past few months.

At least two of the cells are fronting for non-EU captives, highlighting a continuing trend in captive owners setting up fronting cells to write direct insurance on a freedom of services basis.

“When we originally set up White Rock in Gibraltar, we were thinking of replicating the business model of White Rock in Guernsey where most cells retained risk,” said Alain Dufraisse, director of Aon Insurance Managers (Gibraltar) and director and operational executive for White Rock Insurance (Gibraltar) PCC.

“We quickly realised that a lot of clients were mainly interested in using a cell just to gain access to non-EU based captives or reinsurance markets,” he said.

Dufraisse says White Rock/Aon has also noticed a return in interest for the original PCC product. “There are various reasons for this but in the current climate where offshore domiciles are under challenge, onshore cell captives might appear to be more politically correct,” he said.

It remains to be seen whether Gibraltar’s revised tax structure and OECD whitelisting plus the failure of Guernsey, Jersey and the Isle of Man to secure acceptance from EU Member States of code compliance for their fiscal regimes will drive further interest in PCCs in EU direct-writing centres.