Woodward Straits Insurance Company (WSIC), a single-parent captive owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan has been recognised with the CICA Outstanding Captive Award at the Association’s conference in Scottsdale, Arizona.
WSIC is domiciled in Michigan and Fred Driscoll, director of risk financing and captive operations at Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan, accepted the Award from CICA president Dan Towle.
“The captive increases our flexibility when there is a need for new or unique insurance and reinsurance across the enterprise,” Driscoll said.
“For example, we have written, but have not had to utilize, $5 to $10 million layers across our most important programmes in the event the traditional market is not competitive regarding pricing or terms.”
The CICA Outstanding Captive Award is presented to a captive insurance company or risk retention group that has shown creative uses for a captive, been successful in managing the captive in terms of net results and usefulness to its owners, has prevailed over difficult times or situations and has gained acceptance, recognition, and a positive reputation among rating agencies, regulators and colleagues in the captive industry.
WSIC was also successful is supporting its parent group in keeping physical locations with employee on-site protected during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The captive used a broadly written policy that enabled the organisation to secure reimbursement for part of its cleaning and sanitizing costs through a sub-limit in the policy, placing WSIC in a pool of less than 1% of the broker’s clients that saw reimbursement for similar costs.
Driscoll said he had also been encouraged by the group to share their success as a captive with other health insurers and different sectors.
“For other health insurers, we talked to several, and many have implemented, or will be implementing, the use of a captive in some form to assist with the strategic utilization consistent with their plan’s needs,” he added.