- A number of industry schemes in place to train and keep talent
- Particular shortage of mid-tier experience within the sector
- Important for firms to provide talent with experiences outside the office
- A number of networking and educational opportunities available
Captive recruiters are expanding beyond traditional areas to attract talent from other areas of the insurance sector as well as from entirely different industries, aiming to address an alarming talent shortage in the industry.
As a result of companies competing for a finite amount of talent with increasing private equity activity in the captive market, salaries are rising across the sector. While the competition is fierce, rising salaries are helping it compete with other financial services industries.
Businesses must also realise that salaries alone will not retain talent, with opportunities to learn outside of the office environment often being important to young professionals.
Talent challenges are not always felt in the same way industry-wide, as different domiciles are facing nuanced challenges.
“For some of the more established domiciles the talent pool can at times be prohibitively expensive due to local immigration or housing restrictions which can in turn drive up costs,” David Hogg, Aon’s EMEA regional managing director for captive and insurance management at Aon, told Captive Intelligence.
“For other domiciles the local available talent pool might be extremely small or less experienced due to the size or maturity of the local captive market.”
Adele Gale, chair of the Guernsey International Insurance Association (GIIA), said it can be difficult for smaller island economies such as Guernsey to attract enough talent.
“It’s just a factor of not being a major hub,” she said.
“We need to attract people from outside and train up those who are already here. It’s a niche industry — simple in some ways, but also really difficult.”
However, Gale said that for an accountant looking for a job in Guernsey, the captive industry offers an attractive proposition.
“Unlike some other domiciles, where the insurance management sector dominates financial services, in Guernsey, insurance makes up only about 11% of the sector and this gives us a much larger talent pool to draw from,” she said.
“In places where international insurance is the dominant sector, it’s much more difficult to find and recruit skilled professionals.”
Hogg believes that the increase of companies outsourcing certain tasks and roles has led to a reduction in opportunity for newcomers.
“Where are the junior roles in the industry today?” he asked. “When I started in the industry, you essentially got good at your job and worked your way up through the ranks.
“When I think about some of the roles I had early in my career, many of the tasks I was carrying out were simple transactional or administrative processes which today are generally handled in service centres that support the domiciles.
“For a Gen Z coming into the captive industry today, their focus should be on gaining knowledge and experience of the wider insurance and risk transfer industry together with developing softer consulting skills so as to be able to have a broader conversation with clients on captive utilisation and exploring ways for the captive to add value to their organisation.”
Nick Wild, founding member and honorary secretary of Sagacious Group, and a GIIA committee member, said it is important to note that we are not yet in “panic mode” when it comes to talent.
“It’s not like we have no talent,” he added.
However, Wild said if we don’t take proactive steps now, we could find ourselves facing the very shortage the industry is trying to avoid.
“So collectively, we’re making sure that the business stays in a good place for the future,” he told Captive Intelligence.
Gale said it is important the industry considers the diversity of talent in the sector and creates pathways to allow diversity to flourish.
“As an island economy, we can’t force diversity – our population simply isn’t that diverse to begin with,” Gale said.
“However, we’re certainly making efforts to improve inclusion and ensure that everyone feels valued and included in our workforce and we have the Women’s Network, Insurance Development Form and Next Gen Networks.
“I believe a lot of the change necessary to promote more inclusion needs to come from government policy, but we’re doing our best to build connections between junior and senior staff,” she added.
Gale said that by providing role models and demonstrating opportunities for career progression, the industry is also working to challenge societal constructs that often keep women stuck at the mid-management level.
“My goal is to help more women and those from cultural, ethnic, or racial minorities break through the glass ceiling and reach director-level positions,” she said.
Salaries & talent retention
Due to growing competition between companies for hiring and retaining talent, salaries in the industry are proliferating, but firms must realise that wages are not everything when it comes to keeping hold of young staff.
“There are more players, more captive managers, and that’s not a bad thing,” said Dan Towle, president at the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA).
“If they’re hiring away good talent for higher salaries, it puts positive pressure on wages. This helps people realise that our industry offers above-average pay, which makes it more attractive.”
Claire Richardson, captive consultant at Hylant, and member of CICA’s NextGen committee, said that although pay is obviously a significant factor, Hylant has also introduced a flexible time off policy, which she believes is important to people.
“We offer a broad time off approach, where employees work with their managers to determine their time off needs, not beholden to a “bank” of days reserved for time off,” she said.
She believes this flexibility allows people to manage their business goals while balancing their personal life in a way that suits them best.
Richardson also explained how the Hylant Global Captive Solutions team holds an annual summit where the firm brings most of the team together.
“During this summit, we focus on our business goals, redefine our objectives for the year, and channel our energy into achieving them,” she said.
“It’s a time for us to rejuvenate and refocus. We also incorporate team-building activities, like throwing axes or trivia.”
Richardson believes the summit allows colleagues to step away from the professional environment and foster stronger cultural connections within the team.
CICA’s Towle believes it’s critical not to just keep new hires stuck in an office.
“You have to get them out there, show them the opportunities for growth, and take them to conferences where they can build their network,” he said.
He said that exposure can open their eyes to what the industry offers.
“If you don’t do that, they’re probably not going to stay in the field,” Towle added. “There needs to be significant investment in these individuals because it’s costly when they leave.”
Towle said he recently held a conversation with a large captive manager who lost several employees.
“They were frustrated, saying, ‘We spent three to five years getting these folks up to speed, and then they left for another firm,’” he said.
“I asked, ‘Why do you think they left? Did you give them good opportunities? Did you show them what their future could look like after gaining more experience?’” he added. “In many cases, they hadn’t.”
The captive manager thought it was too expensive to send people to conferences or provide additional exposure.
“But I asked, ‘What do you think it costs to replace them?'”
Looking further afield
Although there is a race between firms to hire early career talent, it is also important that the industry finds ways to attract those further into their career to fill the acute shortage in mid-tier staff.
“Bringing in college-aged talent is a great strategy, but I think our industry is specifically lacking individuals in the later millennial and Gen X age group,” Richardson said.
She noted that this is becoming a transitional focus for many companies in the captive sector.
“While we see a lot of promising talent coming in from school and early career stages, we’re not seeing enough people filling the managerial roles that require high engagement and team leadership,” Richardson added.
She has noticed a slow transition of professionals from non-captive, more general insurance backgrounds moving into the captive space in their mid-career.
“I would argue that this group is becoming the new ‘next generation’ for the industry,” she said.
Towle said those with accounting degrees and law degrees are great, but it is important to note that a lot of people getting into the captive space do not generally have a traditional background.
He highlighted Adam Miholic, head of captives at Revantage, and an original member of CICA’s NextGen Committee, as a good example.
“He was a teacher, and I dare say what do I do all day? For the most part I teach, and I educate people about captives and about opportunities,” Towle said. “There’s a lot of folks with different backgrounds that can have great careers in our space.”
Hogg said we need to be smart when it comes to bringing in new talent from outside the captive industry.
“Whilst what we do is a specialised niche within the insurance sector, it’s not rocket science,” he said.
Hogg noted that he has seen a lot of success recently by introducing new colleagues from alternative areas of the insurance industry into captives.
“They have brought a fresh perspective and valuable skills, which have been a welcome addition,” he said.
“Relying solely on the existing captive talent pool is potentially risky and does not address the longer-term challenges the industry is facing of preparing the captive workforce of the future.”
Gale said it is the responsibility of businesses to create talent pathways and make the captive industry attractive to new talent.
“Focusing solely on this year’s dividend without investing time and resources to ensure there are people to work in the industry isn’t sustainable,” she said.
Industry wide schemes
There are a number of educational resources accessible to potential talent as well as support networks available to those new to the captive industry.
In February 2023, an updated course in international insurance management was launched in Guernsey, building upon the legacy created by the late John Parkinson’s textbook on captive management.
The new course entails 75 hours of self-learning (supported by mentors) followed by a multiple-choice exam. Successful students can then submit a dissertation to achieve the diploma.
GIIA has also made the course material available at no cost on its website.
Wild said at the time that the course is ultimately about making sure people are better informed about the business they’re conducting on a day-to-day basis.
“It’s both a useful reference manual as well as providing the course material behind which sits an exam,” he said
Last year, Guernsey also introduced the Non-Executive Director (NED) Development Programme to offer “fresh blood” to the jurisdiction’s director community, including for captive boards.
“On the iNED side, we’re seeing a steady flow of new members joining the sector, which is encouraging,” Wild said. “Importantly, they come from a wide range of backgrounds—not just retired professionals from the captive insurance sector like myself.
“We’re also attracting people from other parts of Guernsey’s finance sector and even from outside the island region.”
CICA has a popular NextGen initiative that brings the voices of young and new captive professionals to the table, helping advise CICA on education and networking opportunities.
“I want the NextGen Committee, first and foremost, to be great leaders and role models for young professionals,” Towle told Captive Intelligence.
He said that in most cases, these are people who genuinely want to give back, and they understand that by doing so and getting more involved, they’ll also grow their own careers.
“We’ve seen this happen anecdotally, with individuals advancing in their positions thanks to the skills and networks we’ve helped them build,” he said.
In March 2023, Vermont launched the Vermont Captive Insurance Emerging Leaders (VCIEL) to raise the profile of its sector across the State among both students and those working in other industries.
I think everybody in the industry has an important role.
“I would say being the lead domicile, we really should be out in front of the issue and we work really closely with Brittany Nevins and our Agency of Commerce, to try to implement different programs that attract new talent,” said Christine Brown, director of captive insurance at the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation, in an upcoming episode of the Global Captive Podcast.
VCIEL was launched in partnership with the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) and is led by a group of younger captive professionals who are keen to tackle the need for talent in the industry.