Insurance Regulatory Sandbox & Innovation Hub — Bermuda's Six-Year InsurTech Testing Ground

In 2018 the Bermuda Monetary Authority (BMA), the island's single financial regulator, launched a two-track programme to attract and test insurance-technology innovation: a Regulatory Sandbox for companies undertaking licensable insurance activities on a limited, supervised basis, and an Innovation Hub for earlier-stage, non-licensable concepts open to companies not yet registered in Bermuda.

By its sixth year of operation, the programme had engaged 70 companies overall. Of these, 12 were admitted to the Sandbox and 7 graduated into full insurance licence classes, including 2 that became fully licensed Innovative Insurer General Business (IIGB) companies; a further 11 companies passed through the Innovation Hub. Technologies tested spanned artificial intelligence, machine learning, blockchain, parametric insurance and crypto-denominated policies, across reinsurance, life and property-casualty lines.

BMA officials describe the framework as having provided "new capacity as well as access to non-traditional sources of capital" to the Bermuda market, with graduating companies establishing local operations and creating jobs. The sandbox sits within a wider Bermuda insurance and reinsurance sector that the industry association ABIR reports contributed over US$1.2 billion to the local economy in 2024 and employed 2,121 people, nearly 70% of them Bermudian, spouses of Bermudians or permanent resident certificate holders — underscoring the sector's role in the island's talent and company-attraction strategy, even as the sandbox's own direct licensing yield (12 of 70 engaged companies) remains modest relative to its ambition.

Read the full analysis: https://www.bermudareinsurancemagazine.com/bermudas-regulatory-sandbox-six-years-of-success