The Worldwide Broker Network (WBN) is providing captive education to smaller brokers to help them compete with larger brokers with more resources.
The WBN is one of the largest independent broker networks in the world, with more than 150 broker members in over 100 countries.
“They don’t have the depth of the resources that some of the large global brokers do,” said Anne Marie Towle, CEO of Hylant Global Risk and Captive Solutions, speaking on episode 105 of the Global Captive Podcast.
“Being a founding member and very proud member of WBN, Hylant has these types of resources to spend time with them on education and provide them the resources they need.
“It helps them be more valuable to their clients and provide the depth and breadth that they can compete against a lot of the competition that does have the resources.”
Towle said she recently had a meeting with a broker who works in Brazil and Argentina and wants to be able to provide captive services and resources to his clients.
“They don’t have it in house so it’s about how we can partner,” she said. “It’s about walking them through and getting them comfortable from an education perspective.”
Olga Collins, CEO of the WBN, said that most brokers understand the value of captives but “the experience is still needed to have more comfort around the topic”.
Collins said that market conditions have been expanding the interest in captives to smaller clientele.
“It’s not just the Fortune 500 anymore,” she said. “It’s the mid-market sized companies that are also trying to find solutions and offset the costs and be smarter about their financial decisions.
“That piece has been ongoing, but at the same time we have geographies that still are very new around the table, and some are still considering captives a non-starter, so we’re waiting for some of those developments to come our way.”