MONTPELIER, Vt.—Vermont licensed 17 new captive insurance companies in the first six months of 2010, three more than during the same period last year.

The state licensed 39 captives in 2009, the sixth-best year for the 29-year-old domicile.

This year’s formations have included 15 single-parent captives—four of them special-purpose financial captives—and two risk retention groups, according to the Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration.

“The people that are forming right now are forming for all the right reasons,” said Dan Towle, director of financial services in the Vermont Department of Economic Development. “There’s no one that’s forming for some sort of knee-jerk reaction to market conditions. It’s all about control.”

Among the companies forming captives this year in Vermont are Procter & Gamble Co., PricewaterhouseCoopers L.L.P., Crowe Horwath L.L.P. and Towers Watson & Co.