South Carolina Has Bountiful Year Capturing Captive Insurers.

Byline: Jim Parker

Dec. 7--The jury's still out on whether South Carolina will become a leader in the captive insurance industry, but the state certainly had a swashbuckling inaugural year, managers and agents said Thursday at the industry's second annual conference in Charleston.

Captives are companies set up to deal with a specific type of coverage for a corporation, association or other group. Once based primarily in offshore tax havens such as Bermuda, captives have started to locate in Vermont, Hawaii and other states.

They typically thrive in markets such as workers compensation, liability and medical malpractice that tend to have periods of …