Delaware’s insurance commissioner is lauding her state’s efforts to add eight new captive insurers in the last six months of 2009, resulting in a 20% increase in the number of captives from a year earlier.

Karen Weldin Stewart

Karen Weldin Stewart praised both her department’s Bureau of Captive and Financial Insurance Products, established in August 2009, and the Delaware Captive Insurance Association for their work in fostering new growth in the captives market. Owned by the entities they insure, captive insurance companies are formed to insure the risks of its parent company.

The eight new captive insurers were added to the state’s 40 existing captive businesses.

“I am especially gratified that these new captive entities all chose to use Delaware service providers to facilitate their formation,” Weldin Stewart said in a statement. “Whether the providers are law firms, accountants or captive managers, it shows that our new captive program is fostering economic development in Delaware by creating and retaining insurance industry jobs in the state.”

R. Clay Folz, president of Dover, Del.-based Delaware Surety Insurance Co., said one of his goals for the captive program is “to grow business throughout the entire state.

“Delaware Surety is an agency captive that will be reinsuring surety bond business,” Foltz said in a statement. “This new captive insurer reflects a successful collaboration among the department of insurance, Delaware service providers, and the Delaware Captive Insurance Association.”

Weldin Stewart said she is optimistic about the future of Delaware’s captives market, noting that the new businesses will bring in revenue of $800,000 to the state over the next five years. She added that there are “several” applications for new captives in the state and “we expect several additional applications to be forthcoming.”