MONTPELIER, Vt.—As this year’s VCIA conference begins, Vermont finds itself celebrating a captive milestone amid what’s shaping up as another good year for captive formations.

And, while the state announced its 900th captive license Tuesday (see related story), with 22 new licenses issued thus far in 2010 and a pipeline full of potential applications waiting to make their way to Vermont regulators, it seems likely the 900 figure will soon be left far behind.

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

“I don’t know how to qualify or quantify the years anymore, but this year seems to be a very good one,” said David F. Provost, deputy commissioner in the Captive Insurance Division of the Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance, Securities and Health Care Administration. The formations this year represent “a little bit of everything, just like last year,” Mr. Provost said.

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.

“We’ve still got a good flow of new business coming in,” Mr. Provost said. “I’ve been to three managers in the past couple of days, and each one of them says, ‘I’ve got an app just about to come to you again.’ So as soon as we clear off a pile of applications, we’ve got a new stack coming in.”

“I think it’s just that we are being consistent and are doing the same things that we have always done,” said Mr. Provost. “I’ve been turning away business that didn’t suit us, and even had some of these companies come back and say, ‘OK, we changed our business plan. Does this suit you now?’”

This year has seen a change in the captive division’s leadership, with Sandra A. Bigglestone, formerly the division’s director of financial examinations, moving into the director of captive insurance position last month, replacing Peter Raymond, who has left the captive industry.

“We still make a strong commitment to captive regulation,” said Gov. Jim Douglas. “Our deputy commissioner, Dave Provost, is doing a great job. We lost our director, but his successor’s been in the department for the 13 years, so Sandy Bigglestone has a lot of experience as well. And, of course, Dan Towle (director of financial services in the Department of Economic Development) from the commerce agency is part of our team, too.”

“We’re still No. 3 behind Bermuda and the Caymans, but we’ll keep at it,” the governor said.

“It comes in waves,” Mr. Provost said. “We get three or four at a time, wrap them up, we get a week off and three or more come in.”