单选题   Para. 1 ①The seaside promenade in Douglas, on the Isle of Man, a self-governing British Crown dependency, boasts grand Victorian buildings and a horse-drawn tram. ②When cheap air travel meant these holiday towns were abandoned, most fell into disrepair. ③But Douglas reinvented itself as an offshore financial centre. ④Today finance provides over a third of the island's GDP, of which around half is from insurance. ⑤Now new transparency rules put that at risk.
    Para. 2 ①From January 1st the island's insurers will have to be more open with clients, in particular on the subject of brokers' commissions. ②Britain has had similar rules since last year. ③International organizations such as the OECD, a club of rich countries, and the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental anti-money-laundering organization, increasingly require such standards for their seal of approval.
    Para. 3 ①The island's main insurance business is not at risk. ②The 'offshore bonds' it started offering in the 1970s allow British residents to pay a lump sum, usually at least 50,000 pounds ($63,000), to be returned on an agreed date. ③These count as life insurance, though the insurance payout is typically just 1—5% of the lump sum, and can be as little as 1 pound. ④The appeal is tax-efficiency: deferring income tax liabilities or avoiding inheritance tax. ⑤Britain's tax authority could kill these off, but it has tolerated them for decades and shows no sign of a change of heart.
    Para. 4 ①Rather, it is the island's growing business of life insurance for expatriates and the global rich that is under threat. ②The other big offshore insurance centre, Bermuda, specializes in property-and-casualty insurance and reinsurance, mainly for hurricane risk in America. ③For the Isle of Man, by contrast, life insurance accounts for over 90% of its insurers' assets under management: 69 bn pounds out of 75 bn pounds. ④And within life insurance, it specializes in asset protection and asset management rather than death benefits or annuities.
    Para. 5 ①Reasons to buy range from wealth protection—from high taxes, government expropriation or succession squabbles—to tax arbitrage. ②In many countries the proceeds of a life-insurance policy attract less tax than a direct inheritance.
    Para. 6 ①Unhappily for Manx firms, these products are sold with hefty commissions. ②Some of their brokers charge 6—7% of a policy's value. ③Though that is similar to commissions in onshore jurisdictions—around 6% in Ireland, for instance—onshore life insurance is mainly about death benefits, annuities and to an extent savings. ④A better comparator for Manx products is financial advice, where commissions have been slashed. ⑤In Britain financial advisers must charge retail investors fixed fees rather than commissions, to avoid conflicts of interest.
    Para. 7 ①Business might shift to avoid the new rules. ②One Manx official worries about competition from the British Virgin Islands. ③Or clients boggling at the newly revealed fees may switch to a different sort of vehicle for asset protection, for example the trusts in which Jersey and Guernsey, also Crown dependencies, specialize.
    Para. 8 The Isle of Man will still benefit from a stable legal environment and specialist talent.
    Para. 9 ①It already offers some products that rely on neither Britain's tax forbearance nor rich individuals elsewhere. ②But the island's financial industry will have to diversify: to new types of customers such as corporations, for example, or to products that are less dependent on brokers.