In this GCP Short, produced in partnership with the Stonefort Group, listeners will be introduced to the unique evolution and service offering of a Luxembourg single-parent captive into a commercial venture that today offers direct insurance services, reinsurance capacity and captive management.
Stonefort began life in 2000 as Builders Re, a reinsurance captive owned by German multinational construction giant Hochtief AG, but has written third party business since the beginning and the entrepreneurial spirit has only grown over the past 20 years.
Richard is joined by three of the experienced captive professionals behind Stonefort for a 20 minute discussion that was recorded at the European Captive Forum in Luxembourg on 10 November. They are CEO John Morrey, Chief Insurance Officer Koenraad Everaert and Head of Marketing Bertrand Gilson.
The former Marsh Captive Solutions chief has used his platform as President of the Insurance Institute of London to make the case for the UK as a captive domicile.
Chris Lay, CEO of Marsh UK & Ireland, and President of the Insurance Institute of London.
Chris Lay, CEO of Marsh UK & Ireland and a former president of Marsh Captive Solutions, believes London could be “a unique and attractive location for captive investment”.
Speaking as President of the Insurance Institute of London at the Lloyd’s building on 23 November, Lay added his voice to others from the industry who over the past two years have been calling for the UK to offer a new regulatory regime for captives.
“A committed and proportionate regulatory regime is now the biggest factor in our clients’ captive domicile selection,” said Lay, who ran Marsh’s global captive business from 2014 to 2016 before leading Marsh Canada from 2016 to 2018, and then taking on the UK and Ireland in 2018.
“An ambitious regulatory model for captives, combining a proportionate risk-based solvency regime with London’s global reinsurance market, could make the UK a unique and attractive location for captive investment.”
In October 2020, the London Market Group (LMG) began lobbying for a proportionate captive regime to be introduced in the UK and has held discussions with UK Treasury and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). In May 2022 it said this work was continuing through a joint working group.
The LMG’s Sean McGovern, also AXA XL’s CEO for the UK & Lloyd’s, also discussed the LMG’s ambitions on the Global Captive Podcast in August 2021.
The captive topic has since been brought up in Westminster committee hearings and the LMG has also sounded out Airmic, the UK’s risk management association, for its members’ views on the possibility of being able to domicile captives at ‘home’.
The LMG, in response to consultations, has been calling for a new class of insurer – captives – to be created and for the PRA to “develop specific guidance for captives which focuses on reduced prudential risk assessments, a swifter approval process (30 – 60 days from application to licensing), reduced reporting requirements, lower capital requirements and reliance on wider group functions such as auditing etc”.
At the time of writing, however, no legislation or regulatory amendments have been brought forward to that effect.
The intervention of Lay, an influential and well-respected member of the UK insurance market, is likely to push the topic back to the agenda.
“New business would be provided to these sectors and new jobs in captive management would be created, as decision making on the captive must be taken within the jurisdiction it is based,” he added.
“Over the last two years, Marsh has seen the fastest rate of captive growth since the 1980s. At a time when we expect this trend to continue, it is mostly the regulatory aspect, and the proportional, cost effective but highly efficient infrastructure required for running a captive, that prevents the UK from becoming a successful captive domicile.”
AGCS plans to grow its alternative risk transfer (ART) team with 20 new positions in order to improve its delivery across all areas from modelling and underwriting to legal expertise and claims.
The carrier plans to target growth opportunities in captive solutions including fronting, as well as structured solutions. It said structured solutions are a growth area for AGCS’s ART team.
Brian McNamara, AGCS’ Head of Captive Solutions based in Bermuda, said: “In the past two years many organisations turned to captives by establishing new in-house insurance programmes or expanding existing ones by adding new lines of coverage such as cyber or even third-party risk from customers or suppliers.
“We can help captive parents get the most out of their captive and maximizing the benefits of self-insurance leveraging our captive expertise in combination with our wider alternative risk transfer capabilities.”
AGCS’ ART line of business contributed about 5% to the companies’ global net premium volume in 2021, and the insurer said it was making the investment to support portfolio growth and provide more capacity in the ART segment to “harvest” market opportunities.
The company highlighted that the underwriting process is important to the success of its ART function.
It has a multi-disciplinary teams of underwriters, modelers, actuaries, accountants and legal specialists who work together when designing a customised ART solution for a company.
Grant Maxwell, global head of ART, highlighted the structured cover it has developed for the North American commercial auto market an example to illustrate the importance of these solutions.
“US trucking firms were struggling with strong premium increases from a market that was changing rapidly, leading to unsustainable auto liability programmes,” he said.
“We combined various excess placements with structured multi-year features linked to the actual loss performance. This allowed firms who were confident in their loss performance to share in the benefits and be able to purchase higher liability limits.”
Grant Maxwell was gueat co-host of GCP #65 in April 2022. Listen to the episode below or on any podcast app.
This GCP Short, produced in partnership with RISCS, is all about the evolving reinsurance strategies of captives.
Joining Richard for 20 minutes, Oliver Schofield, Managing Partner, and David Hully, who joined RISCS as a Partner in July 2022, discuss the growing number of options and reinsurance partners available to captives, the importance of getting a sound reinsurance strategy in place from the beginning, and the changing market environment.
AXA XL is the P&C and specialty risk division of AXA, known for solving even the most complex risks. We offer traditional and innovative insurance solutions and services for mid-sized companies to the world’s largest multinationals in more than 200 countries and territories.
AXA XL is one of the world’s leading provider of captive solutions with products and services designed to support diverse captives and their parent companies. This includes providing captive fronting services for clients looking to use their captives for both traditional and emerging enterprise risks. In all instances, our award-winning team looks to partner with captive managers – and their brokers/external consultants – to create value for parent companies while managing their operations with maximum efficiency.
KEY CONTACTS
steven bauman
Global Programmes and Captives Regional Director, North America
Brown & Brown is a large account risk management firm that values depth of industry and product knowledge. Operating as a single profit center organized by specialization, we align our service teams to be structured based on what is best for your business rather than geographic convenience.
We go beyond one-off transactions and utilize advanced analytics on every program. By quantifying the effects each decision will have on a company’s risk profile, we take the mystery out of risk financing. Execution on analytical findings is our true differentiator in financing risk, mitigating losses, and affecting process changes. Our collective success is earned by creating the ideal risk management solution for you.
KEY CONTACTS
Matt takamine
Executive Managing Director, Captive Practice Leader
Captive Intelligence was launched in December 2022 to meet the growing demand for credible and relevant news and analysis of the global captive insurance market.
Through a combination of exclusive news stories and in-depth long read features, Captive Intelligence provides valued insight to captive owners, risk managers, service providers and regulators around the world.
Founder Richard Cutcher has reported on the world of captives since 2014, and has become a trusted commentator on the sector.
Global Captive Podcast
The Global Captive Podcast was launched in 2019 and has gone on to release almost 200 episodes attracting more than 130,000 listens and counting. More than 250 expert professionals, including 100 captive owners, have featured on the podcast since its launch.
It is free to listen and subscribe to, with flagship 30-minute episodes released every two weeks. Our GCP Shorts series also provide short, thought leadership insight into specific topics from some of the leading captive insurance professionals in the world.
You can listen to the Global Captive Podcast on the Captive Intelligence website, or any podcast app. Just search for ‘Global Captive Podcast’ on your platform of choice.
Captive Intelligence and the Global Captive Podcast are part of Global Captive Media Ltd.
Richard is an experienced captive insurance journalist and respected commentator, having covered the sector around the world since 2014. He was Editor of Captive Review magazine from 2014 to 2018, before joining the UK’s risk and insurance management association, Airmic.
In 2019, Richard launched the Global Captive Podcast to communicate this varied industry through a new and more intimate medium. He launched Captive Intelligence in 2022, building it into the industry’s most trusted online source of news, analysis and thought leadership.
Richard read History at the University of York and gained the NCTJ journalism diploma from News Associates in Wimbledon. Based in London now, he previously lived and worked in Cape Town and New York.
Nick Morgan began his career in captive insurance at Captive Review in 2002, where he transformed it from a quarterly magazine into the market’s largest subscription product. He spearheaded the launch of its events portfolio in 2008 and designed the inaugural European Captive Forum in 2010.
Nick joined Captive Intelligence in 2024, where he is focused on transitioning the business to a market intelligence and data services business, alongside our portfolio of new dynamic industry events.
Luke is a proficient insurance journalist and has reported the sector since 2021. He was previously a Reporter at online publication Insurance Insider from 2021 to 2022, covering a number of speciality lines including: Political Violence, Trade Credit, Construction and Product Recall (among others).
Luke joined Captive Intelligence in September 2022 as a Senior Reporter. He studied on the BJTC accredited Broadcast Journalism course at the University of Leeds. Luke then went on to gain a scholarship to study for a Master’s in Financial Journalism at City, University of London. He is based in Manchester, England and has spent time studying journalism in Hong Kong.
Lucy joined Captive Intelligence in 2025, reuniting with Nick and Richard. She has extensive experience in publishing and sales for the captive insurance market. She worked across multiple insurance titles at Pageant Media before being promoted to Senior Publishing Manager for Captive Review in 2014.
Lucy is also an experienced project manager having also worked for the European Medical Journal.
In this GCP Short, produced in partnership with Captive Resources, Richard is joined by Joseph Parrilli, Senior Vice President at Captive Resources, and Julie Antunes, Health & Wellness Coordinator at Abell, LLC to discuss the use of group captives to fund medical stop loss cover.
Joe talks about the wider market developments in medical stop loss and how group captives can be a successful option, while Julie shares with us her company’s own experiences of the group captive approach.
This episode was recorded in front of a live audience at the European Captive Forum, in Luxembourg, on Wednesday 9 November.
Richard is joined by Marcus Reichel, Head of Insurance at German multinational Knauf, Lorraine Stack, MD and International Advisory and Sales Leader at Marsh Captive Solutions, David Power, CEO at Insurwave, and Emma Sansom, currently Head of Captive Services UK at Zurich Insurance Company.
The panel debate the future of captive insurance, including the increasing demand for technological evolution and captives’ role in energy transition and renewable projects.
