Cayman Islands

Axco provides details on the life insurance sector including Cayman Islands market participants, reinsurance and distribution channels. The reports describe classes of business from both individual and group life such as whole life, endowment, term life and unit-linked.
Information on non-life classes for example critical illness and private medical insurance.

The report describes the public and private healthcare system in the Cayman Islands, the scope of cover, accessibility financing and provides an analysis of how the public and private systems complement each other.

Axco reports on the three pillars of Cayman Islands pension provision.

• State pension benefits including benefit calculations and eligibility criteria 
• Workplace pension provision; types of schemes calculations eligibility and; tax implications
• Voluntary individual pension provision, type of products and tax implications

The Cayman Islands report provides an in-depth analysis of the regulatory framework governing social security as well as details on financing and eligibility. Information includes but is not limited to

• state pensions,
• permanent disability benefit
• occupational accident and disease
• maternity and paternity payments 

There is a limited local life insurance market, with local insurers and agents offering products produced and largely underwritten by overseas life companies. The recorded life written premium for 2019 was KYD 63.63mn (USD 76.36mn) a decrease of 4.31% on the prior year, driven by a reported decrease in annuity premium of 12.58% to KYD 36.84mn (USD 44.21mn) with the prior year higher than usual due to some significant early retirements.

Most domestic life premium income is understood to be derived from the individual business due to the relative ....

In recognition of some of the financial hardship caused by measures to manage the COVID-19 pandemic, National Pensions (Amendment) Act, 2020 was enacted allowing for contribution holidays up until June 2021 and early lump sum withdrawals by members from their pension fund up until October 2020.

There was some concern by pension providers that with many withdrawals made at the bottom of the world stock market correction, account balances will need time to build back-up to meet member retirement needs.

The chairperson of the Health Insurance Standing Committee (HISC), an organisation representing the interests of PMI companies, stated that insurers would share some of the responsibility for the costs of care relating to COVID-19, given the structure of public-private partnership in relation to health coverage in the Cayman Islands, where health insurance is compulsory.

Health insurance continues to be the largest single class of business in the Cayman Islands, accounting for 45.47% of total market income in 2019.