For a captive insurance company to provide an effective employee benefits programme, it is important that there is a strong partnership between the risk function, insurance and human resources.

Speaking on the latest episode of the Global Captive Podcast, shipping giant Maersk explains how it successfully implemented a global EB captive programme, largely driven by the collaboration between risk, insurance, HR and global benefits.

“We cannot do it without each other, without the cooperation,” said Christine Toscano, senior underwriter, people lines at Maersk.

“Risk could develop this great network and structure, but if we do not have the buy-in and the support from the HR teams, then no one’s going to use it.”

Dana Voss, global benefits & wellbeing lead at Maersk, said HR could have a great benefits strategy, but without including the risk element and asking, “what key elements could be missed?” they could lose the efficacy of the programme.

“I will say, I do not think a captive is effective – or at least as effective at Maersk – unless you have complete collaboration between both risk and HR,” she added.

Chris Mason, UK and APAC director of customer and distribution management at Zurich Global Employee Benefits Solutions (ZGEBS), said that when everyone is pulling in the same direction it makes the process and the implementation as smooth and proactive as possible.

“Once that’s in place, it’s brilliant,” he said. “It works really well.”

In addition to the collaboration between risk and HR, there also needs to be support from the wider organisation.

“We have what are called commit rules, which set the corporate strategy and serve as the directive,” Toscano said.

“When our local colleagues say, ‘We do not want to do it this way,’ we can point to them and say: ‘As per the corporate strategy, you must do it this way’.

“And that is also a key reason for our success.”

Voss said it was a natural progression to add EB into Maersk’s already substantial property & casualty captive.

“It also gave us greater visibility and control over our spend,” she added.

“Prior to having the captive, given the size and scope of Maersk, there were plans with different renewal dates, being budgeted separately, and so forth.”

Voss added that the integration offered the firm better flexibility, ensured that its global design solutions were better tailored to its diverse workforce and created consistency across regions.

“It also allowed us to broaden our corporate strategy to ensure that our benefits remained relevant and competitive.”