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Gibraltar Finance Report
Gibraltar’s plans to become a leading underwriting hub for Insurtech
By Albert Isola MP, Gibraltar’s Minister for Digital and Financial Services
Gibraltar is a microcosm of 21st Century life, an international trading centre for over 300 years that has had to repeatedly adapt but always with ingenuity and a willingness to innovate and change. The last 40 years marked by the enormous shift from an economy that in the early 1980’s was dominated by Gibraltar’s military past to a service led economy with a vibrant, expanding and professional financial services sector.
This change is clearly demonstrated by Gibraltar’s insurance industry that today numbers around 50 insurance companies with a particular focus on motor insurance. Gibraltar has unique access to the UK to market and sell its insurance products. One of the big four accounting firms estimates that Gibraltar’s share of the UK motor insurance market is around 25% with Gibraltar motor insurers providing choice and competition for UK consumers.
Post-Brexit Gibraltar’s unique access to the UK is to be enshrined in new legislation, the Gibraltar Authorisation Regime, which forms part of the UK’s Financial Services Bill 2020. The core of this new legislation is Gibraltar’s commitment to regulatory alignment and co-operation with the UK.
Over the last five years, Gibraltar has developed into a leading FinTech hub and we hope 2021 will cement our credentials as a centre for leading insurtechs to locate their insurance underwriting activity. Insurtech has become the term used to describe companies using technology innovations, often data analysis and artificial intelligence, to disrupt the current insurance business model.
In December 2020, the UK’s second insurtech to establish its own insurance company received authorisation from Gibraltar’s Financial Services Commission (GFSC). Marshmallow Insurance Company became Gibraltar’s newest insurer. It follows
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Gibraltar International
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