In episode 68 of the Global Captive Podcast, supported by legacy specialists R&Q, Richard sits down for an extended chat with David Power, CEO of Insurwave, to discuss the development of the platform since its pilot launch as a marine insurance blockchain platform in 2018 with Maersk. Richard and David also discuss the opportunites for captives and insurance buyers to embrace technology more broadly.
Our captive owner interview is with Brayden York, Risk and Insurance Manager at Aurora Cannabis, a Canada-headquartered integrated cannabis company with two active captive structures already in place.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with the State of Vermont, Richard is joined by the outgoing Deputy Commissioner of Captive Insurance in the state, David Provost, and his successor Sandy Bigglestone.
Dave has announced he would be retiring at the end of the summer, and Sandy, who is currently Director of Captive Insurance at the State of Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation will be taking the reins.
In this 20 minute episode, Dave, Sandy and Richard focus on the topics of succession planning, the direction of captive insurance and Sandy’s own priorities when she takes the reins at the end of the summer.
Real-estate investment trust Kite Realty Group is comfortably able to take 85% of its losses via its captive according to Theresa Severson, vice president for insurance & risk at the company.
In October 2021, Kite merged with Retail Properties of America (RPAI), which led to the formation of the fifth largest Real Estate Investment Trust (REIT) in the country. She explained that both REITs had separate captives prior to the merger.
RPAI had a reinsurance captive domiciled in Vermont which was fully fronted and took on the first $100,000 of all liability claims.
“On the property side, it only took a million dollars of cat per occurrence and in aggregate,” Severson said in GCP #67. “For the all other perils, it took $150,000 of each loss and eventually we increased that to $250,000.”
Prior to the merger, Kite had 83 shopping centres and a total of 12 million square feet. It also had a Tennessee-domiciled captive.
“Currently we have 185 open air shopping centres with three million square feet, and 40% of that portfolio is based in Florida and Texas”, she added.
She said that her prior insurance programme had “very little” catastrophe exposure but now 40% is in a cat zone.
“We are going to continue with the Vermont-based captive, and we’re in the process of closing down the Tennessee captive,” Severson revealed.
She added that the company transferred exposures that were in the legacy Kite captive into the Vermont captive, and highlighted that the goal at 1.12 renewal is to take a look at the rest of the programme and ultimately combine it.
Severson highlighted that when she was managing the old RPAI portfolio, she had the advantage of having the first $50m of the tower underwritten by the same carrier.
“This really allowed us some stability in what we were purchasing in the market,” she said. “So really, we kept the status quo with regards to what we were putting in the captive.”
In episode 67 of the Global Captive Podcast, supported by legacy specialists R&Q, Richard is joined by Theresa Severson, Vice President of Insurance & Risk Management at Kite Realty Group in the US. Theresa discusses how she has reviewed and restructured the company’s captive strategy after a recent merger at parent level.
We also have a quarterly investments update from Chris Dalziel and Roger Jones, at Friends of the Podcast London & Capital.
In the second half of the episode, Jiten Halai, Head of Structured Risk Solutions in the UK at AXA XL, joins to discuss alternative risk transfer options for cyber coverage.
In this GCP Short, produced in partnership with the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA), Richard is joined by three experienced captive consultants to debate how to choose a captive domicile.
Jason Flaxbeard, of Brown & Brown, Anne Marie Towle, from Hylant, and Gary Osborne, from Risk Partners, discuss what factors go into choosing a domicile for your captive, when that debate should take place, how some of the priorities have changed and the impact of new regulations and legislation.
In this GCP Short, produced in collaboration with AXA XL, we discuss how companies go about establishing a captive in Europe.
Richard is joined by Marine Charbonnier, Global Programmes and Captives Regional Director for Europe at AXA XL, and making his first appearance on the podcast, Maxime Schons, Managing Director for Europe in Finance & Compliance at Strategic Risk Solutions.
Marine and Max provide an update on European formation activity, the process of establishing a captive, the different players and roles and expectations.
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.
