The number of insurers in Malta has grown rapidly over the past five years, mainly because of an increase in international and captive insurance business, though there was a slowdown last year due to the overall economic environment.
There are now 37 internationally oriented insurance companies in the country, compared with 36 in 2008 and only nine in 2005. Among them are eight captives and three protected cell companies (PCCs). A captive insurance company underwrites the risks of a parent company and its subsidiaries, or the risks of members of a trade or professional association. A PCC is a company which, in addition to its core, contains a number of segregated parts, or 'cells'; each cell is legally independent from the others, as well as from the core, so its assets, liabilities and activities are 'protected' from the rest should any of the others get into trouble.
