24th October 2007

AGM in Florida

The Offshore Group of Insurance Supervisors (“the Group”) held its Annual General Meeting on 16 October 2006 in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida, concurrent with the Annual Meeting of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (“IAIS”).

Mr. David Vick, Chief Executive, Insurance and Pensions Authority – Isle of Man, was re-elected Chairman of the Group. Other members of the Executive Committee elected are Danial Mah – Deputy Chairman (Labuan), Nataly Davelaar-Mercelina – Secretary (Netherlands Antilles), Diane Colton - Treasurer (Guernsey), Caribbean Region Representative – Michael Oliver (British Virgin Islands), Pacific Region Representative – Ala Lima (Samoa) and European Region Representative – Nigel Woodroffe (Jersey).

The Group noted the retirement of its Executive Director, Steve Butterworth. Because of other commitments, Steve was not able to attend this year’s meeting. The Chairman expressed his thanks to Steve for his contributions to the work of the group.

Matters discussed at the meeting included among others developments within the IAIS including recent IAIS papers, the Insurance Laws Database and the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding. As has been the case during the past years, the Group and its members have a substantial input into many areas of the work of the IAIS. The Group also discussed modifications to its current website.

The Group noted that significant progress had been made in the development of its strategy and educational programme. This programme will continue to be updated to take account of the educational needs of the members and observers. Following very successful training programmes for both junior and senior regulatory staff in 2007, undertaken with support from IAIS, the Group discussed plans for a further training programme to be held in May 2008, in conjunction with the Annual Working Meeting of the Group. The focus of this training will be on Special Purpose Vehicles, being a topic which continuous to be of interest to multiple parties. The next annual meeting will be held in Hungary, Budapest in October 2008, to coincide with the IAIS annual conference, and the 2008 working meeting with an additional training module will be held in May of same year.

Note to Editors
The Offshore Group of Insurance Supervisors (“OGIS”) was formed just ahead of the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (“IAIS”) in 1993 and quickly moved to establish and develop a number of regulatory Standards and Guidelines. Subsequently all of the members and most of the Observers have become members of the IAIS, which in turn developed Standards and Guidelines of its own.

OGIS applies specific conditions for membership. Observers have committed themselves to meeting these conditions within a reasonable time frame.

Current members of OGIS are Bahamas, Barbados, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Netherlands Antilles, Gibraltar, Guernsey, Isle of Man, Jersey, Labuan, Macau, Mauritius, Samoa, and the Turks and Caicos Islands. Current Observers of OGIS are Anguilla, Aruba, Bahrain, Belize, St. Lucia and Vanuatu.