InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) would contemplate writing additional lines of business through its Vermont-domiciled captive if the risk has the credentials to be insurable, according to Marc Bentley, head of global risk finance at the company.
Bentley was speaking on the latest episode of the Global Captive Podcast which recorded at the VCIA conference in Vermont last year.
“There may be things that we have looked at previously where perhaps it’s not insurable or where we were pushing too many of the boundaries in terms of where that goes,” Bentley said.
“We’ve always approached risk by trying to partner with third parties – whether that’s reinsurers or some of the parametric carriers – to ask, ‘would you write this risk?’ or ‘what might the structure look like?”
Bentley said although carriers may not have appetite for the specific exposure, the process is more about assessing how the risk structure could potentially work.
“I think that approach helps guide our discussions with regulators and our reinsurers as well,” he added.
Bentley said that if nobody is interested in writing the risk, then perhaps it is not something the company can insure through its captive either.
“Ultimately, companies are always going to have things that are not insurable,” he said.
Speaking alongside Bentley on the Global Captive Podcast was Mat Robinson, senior managing director and captive operations leader at Brown & Brown.
Robinson said that as captive manager they must be involved in these types of discussions.
“Anytime there are new risks being considered, we have to play a part in that,” Robinson said.
“We need to make sure, first, whether it’s something the regulators are going to approve within that particular domicile.”
Robinson said the other area the captive manager is involved is looking at what impact a new risk would have on the overall captive portfolio.
“We also have to think about how it all fits together,” Robinson added. “And there are a few other things that are unique to IHG and their captive that we need to monitor from that point of view as well.”