On September 21, 2026, J.-P. FAUGÈRE, Chairman of the Insurance Committee of France's Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), signed the approval document establishing Florence Ré. This is a reinsurance captive set up by parent company Piveteaubois, a French timber enterprise. According to public records, Piveteaubois is a homegrown family enterprise based in Vendée, western France. It specializes in softwood sawing, CLT (Cross-Laminated Timber), and wood pellet fuel production, with operating bases in both France and Poland.

Upon launch, the captive will primarily write property insurance for factories, long-span steel structures, and production equipment across the group's three manufacturing sites in France (Vendée, Corrèze) and Poland, as well as fire and storm loss coverage for open-air log yards and finished timber warehouses. (Timber assets present high stacking density and flammability, making commercial insurance underwriting conditions particularly stringent.) Reportedly, the wind catastrophe losses inflicted on the group by consecutive winter storms in western France during 2025-2026 (Benjamin, Goretti, Nils) were among the primary factors leading the group to consider establishing a dedicated captive.

Under Article L.350-2 of the French Insurance Code, domestic captives are explicitly defined as reinsurance captives. The captive's headquarters must be located in France, and it must be owned by non-insurance and non-bank entities, providing reinsurance coverage exclusively to its parent company and affiliates. In November 2024, ACPR published the Reinsurance Captive Information Guide, clarifying the application and approval process for establishing captives in France. According to the guidelines, the timeframe from submission of application to completion of approval is approximately six months.

France's captive market has grown rapidly in recent years, driven by three factors: First, the 2023 fiscal reform introduced the "Resilience Provision" tax incentive mechanism, allowing captives to set aside tax-exempt reserves in profitable years to smoothen cross-cycle claim settlements. Specifically, up to 90% of a captive's technical profit may be deducted as a catastrophe reserve before taxation, with total reserves capped at ten times the average minimum capital requirement over the preceding three years—effectively smoothening profit volatility during catastrophe years and achieving tax deferral. Second, the proportional regulatory exemption applies to reinsurance captives with assets below 4 billion, classified as "Small Non-Complex Captives," which are exempt from the full suite of Solvency II quarterly quantitative reporting and require only 1.3 million in minimum paid-up capital. Third, since 2023, Europe has entered a new hard market cycle in property insurance, with the confluence of rate increases and catastrophe losses serving as the core external driver for French corporates to establish domestic captives in succession. The following table illustrates rate increases across selected lines of coverage:

As of October 2026, ACPR has registered 30 active domestic reinsurance captives in normal operation, spanning multiple tangible asset sectors including agriculture and food processing, infrastructure engineering, outdoor manufacturing, and timber processing. Nearly ten additional industrial group projects are currently in the approval pipeline.

For more details, see: France Added 23 Captives in 4 Years: How ACPR Revitalized the Domestic Captive Market

Source: China Captive Insurance Network