In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with MAXIS Global Benefits Network, Richard is joined by Aaron Brown, Regional Manager for UK & Ireland at MAXIS, and Sven Roelandt, Global Leader for EB Captive Services at Aon.
Aaron and Sven discuss how companies are improving benefits for their employees by using the captive, the new coverages being enabled and the keys to success in implementation. Sven also outlines and compares the alternative EB structures that do not involve a captive.
In this GCP Short, produced in partnership with Labuan IBFC, Richard and guests discuss one of 2021’s formations in the South East Asia ‘mid shore’ jurisdiction.
Oliver Schofield, Managing Partner at RISCS, an independent captive and alternative risk transfer consultancy, and his client Daniel Landen, CEO of Protected Trust Services (PTS), explain why PTS established a cell in Labuan last year.
They discuss the rationale for the captive, the domicile selection process and the experience of formation.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with EY, Richard begins to address the coming convergence of insurtech and captives with Mikhail Raybshteyn, Partner and Americas Captive Insurance Services Co-Leader at EY, and Hong Guo, EVP & Chief Insurance Officer at insurtech Arbol.
This episode will be the first of several this year addressing the opportunities for insurtech and captives, and over 20 minutes Mike and Hong share some high level observations of the kind of activity we are already seeing, the opportunities that remain and an introduction to Arbol, itself.
In episode 66 of the Global Captive Podcast, supported by legacy specialists R&Q, Richard is joined by guest co-host Jonathan Reiss, CEO of Concert Group – a new dedicated captive fronting vehicle.
Jonathan discusses the genesis of Concert, shares his views on the broader fronting market for captives and clarifies the company’s relationship with Strategic Risk Solutions.
Our captive owner interview is with Courtney Claflin, who departed the University of California in April after seven years as their Executive Director of Captive Programs. During his time at UC, Courtney transformed their captive strategy into a valued asset and strategic tool serving one of the largest university systems in the world.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with Marsh Captives Solutions, Richard is joined by two experts to discuss the pros and cons or writing cyber insurance through a captive.
Payal Patel, a Senior Vice Presifent and Cyber Practice Leader for the Northeast at Marsh in America, and Mike Serricchio, Americas Sales & Advisory Leader at Marsh Captive Solutions, discuss the state of the commercial market for cyber, the different roles and options captives are providing to corporates, why using a captive for cyber is not always the answer, and the response of underwriters when captives are utilised.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with Swiss Re Corporate Solutions, Richard is joined by Andre Martin, Head of Innovative Risk Solutions for APAC, to discuss captive utilisation in the Asia Pacific Region.
Richard and Andre debate whether changing market conditions have impacted the appetite for captives in the region, how a captive opens up many more risk financing options for corporates and if a boom in captive formations is just around the corner.
Belinda Fortman has left her position as Tennessee’s captive insurance section director just over one year after taking up the regulatory role. Fortman was appointed to lead the fast growing captive jurisdiction in June 2020 after a long and varied career in captive management. Fortman will be joining Innovative Health Holdings as the company’s executive vice president.
She said on her departure: “I leave the captive section with a broad bench of very talented captive insurance regulators and am confident they will continue to reflect the Tennessee captive section’s reputation of being service oriented and business friendly.” The Tennessee Department of Commerce and Insurance (TDCI) has struggled to find a long term captive section leader since Michael Corbett, who held the role for nine years, left in 2020.
Kevin Doherty, chairman of the Tennessee Captive Insurance Association (TCIA), said that Fortman’s “contributions to the TDCI’s captive section include expanding the team, promoting talent to leadership roles, and providing expert guidance to the TDCI to build upon Tennessee’s tradition of ‘regulating to yes.’” He added: “We welcome her continued support as she transitions back into the private sector.”
Heineken chose to form a new captive in 2021 to write international employee benefits for the group.
Heineken, a long time captive owner in the Netherlands, went live with its second captive in 2021 as it embarked on a new financing strategy for international employee benefits.
The Dutch brewing giant chose to form Haystack Re Designated Activity Company (DAC) in Dublin, Ireland, instead of restructuring its 15-year-old self-managed property & casualty captive, Roeminck Insurance NV.
Speaking in an exclusive interview on GCP #65 Rogier Bouwman, global pensions and benefits manager, explained that they were keen for the employee benefits captive to use an outsourced management model. In addition, adding EB to Roeminck would have required converting it into a reinsurance captive.
When asked why they chose to establish a new, separate captive Bouwman admitted that it was not their first thought. “Indeed in the beginning, we also thought to leverage upon our existing captive.”
As the project continued, however, it became clear that there were a number of motives to go down the standalone EB captive route.
Roeminck Insurance, domiciled in the Netherlands, is a direct writer and to add employee benefits would have required it be converted into a reinsurance captive.
“Another reason was that we wanted to do a fully outsourced model for our employee benefits offering,” he added. “We did not want to create extra roles internally to manage and deal with all the operational aspects of the captive.
“… Of course there are financial benefits to combine the captives, but overall, the captive in itself needs to be a standalone business case. It needs to make sense of course from a qualitative nature as we discussed before, but also from a financial perspective.”
Bouwman said that the group will continue to assess over time “whether the current set up is the most effective and logical one” or if they want to combine the two captives in the future.
Employee benefits control
One of the “key” reasons Heineken decided to form its Dublin-domiciled captive was to improve the company’s employee benefits offering by reducing terms, conditions and exclusions.
“The reason why we chose to go captive is to be fully in control of the process,” Bouwman said. He believes Heineken’s captive will also provide financial benefit for the company but stressed that is not the “primary concern”.
“We do think that there are options to save a bit of money, to be more effective, to have better cost control mitigations and to have more stable premiums, but the key reason for this is from a qualitative perspective,” he added. “To further our people agenda and to strengthen our employee benefit.”
Fanny Behrens, global pensions & benefits specialist at Heineken, also detailed a number of advantages its employee benefits captive provides.
Firstly, she highlighted that the captive had allowed the company to align the renewal process with its annual budget planning. “So that of course could actually better indicate the plan costs that are related to the insured benefits programmes.”
Secondly, she said the captive had allowed Heineken to “evolve” its broker model. “In some countries we have completely removed broker arrangements or we have replaced the broker arrangements by targeted consultancy arrangements,” she said.
Finally, Behrens noted that Heineken had also used its employee benefits captive to remove common exclusions around alcohol abuse, HIV, and suicide.
In episode 65 of the Global Captive Podcast, supported by legacy specialists R&Q and hosted by Richard Cutcher, our guest co-host is Grant Maxwell, Global Head of Alternative Risk Transfer at Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty (AGCS). In an in-depth discussion, Grant discusses structured reinsurance programmes and fronting for captives.
Our captive owner interview is with Heineken’s Rogier Bouwman, Global Head of Pensions and Benefits, and Fanny Behrens, Global Pensions & Benefits Specialist. Rogier and Fanny explain to Richard why they formed a new, separate captive in Ireland last year solely for international employee benefits programmes.
The final interview of the episode is with Joe McDonald, Director of Captives for the South Carolina Department of Insurance. Richard caught up with Joe at CICA and he tells listeners about his new regulatory role.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with Spring Consulting Group, Richard is joined in a 15 minute conversation with Karin Landry, Managing Partner at Spring Consulting, and Fredrik Finnman, Head of Group Risk Management at the Swedish global engineering giant Sandvik.
Karin and Fredrik debate the differences between the European and US captive markets, specifically with regards to regulatory culture, the impact of the hard market and Karin also provides an update on growing activity at the Department of Labor with reference to ERISA benefits.
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