On 21 September 2026, J.-P. FAUGÈRE, Chairman of the Insurance Committee of the French Prudential Supervision and Resolution Authority (ACPR), signed an instrument approving the establishment of Florence Ré — a reinsurance captive set up by Piveteaubois, a French timber-processing enterprise. According to public information, Piveteaubois is a local family enterprise based in Vendée, France, specialising in softwood sawn timber, CLT cross-laminated timber and wood-energy pellets, with production sites in both France and Poland.

Once established, the captive will primarily insure property damage to plant, long-span steel structures and production equipment at the group's three production bases in France (Vendée and Corrèze) and Poland, together with fire and storm losses at open-air log yards and finished-timber warehouses (timber is stored in high stacks and is highly flammable, making commercial insurance underwriting conditions especially demanding). It is understood that the severe windstorm catastrophes caused by three consecutive storms (Benjamin, Goretti and Nils) that battered western France in winter 2025-2026 were one of the principal reasons the group decided to set up a dedicated captive.

Under Article L.350-2 of the French Insurance Code, a domestic captive is explicitly defined as a reinsurance captive company. Its headquarters must be located in France, it must be held by non-insurance, non-banking enterprises, and it may only provide reinsurance coverage to its parent and affiliated undertakings. In November 2024, the ACPR published its "Reinsurance Captive Information Guide", setting out the application and approval process for establishing a domestic captive in France. In accordance with those rules, the time from submission of an application to completion of approval is six months.

France's captive market has grown rapidly in recent years, driven above all by two factors: first, the "Provision pour Résilience" (Resilience Reserve) tax incentive introduced in the 2023 fiscal package, which allows captives to set aside tax-free reserves during profitable years to smooth cross-cycle claim payouts; specifically, up to 90% of a captive's technical profit may be set aside as a catastrophic reserve on a pre-tax basis, with the total reserve capped at ten times the average minimum capital requirement over the preceding three years, effectively smoothing profit volatility during catastrophe years and delivering deferred tax relief. Second, the Proportional Regulatory Exemption: reinsurance captives with total assets below €40 billion are classified as "small and non-complex captives", can be exempted from the full set of Solvency II quarterly quantitative reports, and have a minimum paid-in capital requirement of only €1.3 million. Third — and on the external side — since 2023 Europe has entered a new hard cycle in property insurance, with rising premiums combined with catastrophe losses being the core external driver for this wave of French corporates setting up domestic captives. The table below shows the increases in selected insurance classes:

As of October 2026, the number of domestic reinsurance captives registered and operating normally with the ACPR has reached 30, spanning multiple real-economy sectors including agri-food, infrastructure engineering, outdoor manufacturing and timber processing. Around ten more industrial group projects are currently queued for authorisation.

For full details, please see: 23 New Captives Added in Four Years — How France Reactivated Its Domestic Captive Market

Source: China Captive