Former Zurich head forms captive manager to meet growing Asia demand

Former Zurich Asia captives head Sean Welsch has formed a new captive management company in Singapore.

Welsch Captive Management (WCM) opened for business in early October, and aims to have the first captive set up either late this year or early next year.

WCM provides captives fronting, international programme structures, quantitative risk analysis, feasibility studies, and compliance.

“Currently there is no independent alternative available in APAC and while there is interest from a corporate customer perspective there is still a lot of education to be done,” said Welsch.

“The company is still very young, but there are a number of projects in the pipeline in respect to set up.”

Welsch has over 17 years of experience in the insurance industry, and most recently served as the head of captive management and business development APAC at Zurich Insurance Company. Here he was responsible for all captive and alternative risk transfer transactions with respect to development, governance, delivery and execution, along with driving fee income and customer relationships, and educating customers, brokers and employees on the benefits of captive and international programme structures.

WCM has been set up in Singapore, but it is in the process of acquiring licenses to support customers in Labuan, Malaysia.

“The target audience is all of APAC which could utilise a captive (which are many) and any company that has an interest in moving or setting up their captive in Asia,” he explained.

Welsch added: “The main trend in APAC as a whole is more interest in captives and in Asian domiciles, particularly there is movements in the Philippines and Malaysia, but also Korea and Japan see increased activity. In part BEPS is to be thanked for this, as it has broken some established norms and created an environment that calls for change and growth in captives.”