Vermont licensed 38 new captive insurance companies in 2020 and is seeing continued growth amid the ongoing hard market, the state’s department of economic development said Tuesday.

However, 34 captives closed in 2020, which brings the total number of active captives to 564, up from 559 in 2019 and 558 in 2018, and just two less than the 566 active captives at the end of 2017, according to department figures.

Vermont licensed 11 new captives in the fourth quarter of 2020 alone, Brittany Nevins, captive insurance economic development director, said in the statement.

“The market that began hardening in 2019 continued rapidly throughout 2020 and now into 2021. Before 2021 began we had more captives in process for licensing than we had licensed total in the first month of 2020,” Ms. Nevins said.

The new formations were made up of 25 pure captives, seven sponsored captives, two special purpose financial insurers, one risk retention group, one agency captive, one affiliated reinsurance company and one industrial insured captive, Ms. Nevins said via email.

The new captives were licensed in health care, real estate, manufacturing, insurance, transportation, technology, construction and professional services, according to the statement.

Hard market conditions, particularly in commercial property insurance, influenced the number of captive formations in the construction and real estate sectors, Dave Provost, deputy commissioner of captive insurance, said in the statement.

“Nearly a third of the new formations this past year had parents from those industries, with price and availability commonly noted as drivers for the captive,” Mr. Provost said.

Companies setting up captives in the state included the University of Southern California, State Street Bank, Saputo Inc. and the Blackstone Group.

At least six of Vermont’s 38 new captive in 2020 were formed by companies with international roots, including Canada, Germany (2), Sweden, Dubai and Australia, the department said.

Vermont is now home to 589 licensed captives, up from 585 licensed captives at year-end 2019, according to Business Insurance’s latest ranking.