Influential Women in Captive Insurance: Amy Angell
Amy Angell, Principal and consulting actuary, Milliman
Amy Angell helps captive clients assess the value of their captive insurance programmes and evaluate the effect of risk management and safety initiatives. Her areas of specialisation include casualty insurance ratemaking and reserving, financial modelling, management reporting, and benchmarking.
Angell supports regulators with the evaluation of captive insurance applications and financial audits. She is the vice president–casualty of the American Academy of Actuaries.
How did you get started in the captive insurance industry?
I began my career working with captive insurance companies as an actuarial analyst in Milliman’s Boston office. At the time, we were seeing a fair amount of growth in the captive insurance industry, and I spent a significant amount of my time working on various captive projects.
Today most of my time is dedicated to working with captive-related clients including captive insurers, their owners and members, and captive regulators.
Who inspired you or acted as a mentor in your career?
I have had the privilege of working with a wonderful team of consultants throughout the years. Joel Chansky established a level of knowledge and quality standards we all aim to achieve, and then helped to build a team of dedicated, collaborative professionals to support that goal, which I help lead today.
I have been fortunate to work with many inspiring women in the field, including captive managers, brokers, attorneys, and risk managers.
What do you think deters people from entering the world of captives?
The main challenge is insufficient awareness and understanding of the industry. The captives sector employs people with diverse skills and backgrounds, and in that way, it has opportunities for many people, but it may appear as a specialised segment in each of their fields.
How can mentorship and sponsorship programmes be designed to better support the career development of women?
Building on what I said earlier, the key step is to raise awareness of the industry. For women who are in the industry, having networks and platforms that foster and highlight the voices of women, such as mentoring programmes, affinity groups, awards, and events will help them advance their careers.
I am happy to say that we already see such programmes in the industry, such as the Amplify Women programme of the Captive Insurance Companies Association and, in the actuarial field, the Network of Women Actuaries and Allies.
“Women-focused working groups within organisations can also be productive.”
In what ways can companies in the sector create a more inclusive culture that actively promotes gender diversity at all levels?
Companies can take proactive steps to promote a culture of fairness and belonging in the industry, such as hiring and evaluation standards that are not biased by gender, work arrangements that are adaptable, leave for parents, and training to prevent discrimination.
Women-focused working groups within organisations can also be productive and enable women to share ideas and support one another throughout their careers.
What challenges are gender-specific to women in the captives industry?
A lot of the obstacles that women face are common across different sectors, not just the captive insurance industry. These include the low number and visibility of women in leadership roles, especially on boards and senior management teams. This can create a barrier and reduce the apparent options for career growth and mentorship for women.
These difficulties may be worsened by an absence of awareness and appreciation within an organisation of the benefit that a specific captive insurance programme provides to the company and/or its members.
What solutions would you like to see?
One solution is to enable women to communicate the benefits of captive insurance and their contributions to it. Another is to highlight role models and allies who can support and champion women in the industry, such as female leaders, mentors, speakers, and sponsors.
Finally, to make the results of such efforts transparent, it would help to gather and evaluate data and metrics that track and show the results of diversity and inclusion efforts in the industry, such as gender distribution, pay gap, turnover, and satisfaction.
What are your ambitions?
My goals are to support the ongoing innovation, growth, and knowledge of the captive insurance industry. I aim to promote diversity and inclusion in all my work, and to empower women and other marginalised groups with my expertise and through my role as a leader within my firm.
Click here to read Captive International’s first Influential Women in Captive Insurance publication, celebrating the women transforming the captive sector through their sustained excellence and leadership.
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