Influential Women in Captive Insurance: Elizabeth Carbonaro

Elizabeth Carbonaro, Regional managing director–Western Europe, Captive & Insurance Management Solutions, WTW 

With more than 30 years of accounting and insurance experience Elizabeth Carbonaro joined Willis Towers Watson (WTW) in June 2012, managing a number of captives and insurance companies domiciled in Malta. She was appointed managing director of the Malta office in 2016 and regional managing director for WTW Captive & Insurance Management Solutions, Western Europe in 2018

Carbonaro is experienced in managing the financial and regulatory areas of insurance companies and captives from the delivery of consulting services to the incorporation of a captive through to the ongoing management of the company. She sits on a number of captive boards in Malta and Luxembourg.

How did you get started in the captive insurance industry?

I was the chief financial officer of a large local insurance group that entered the captive management space in the late 2000s. I transitioned from the CFO role to the general manager role of the insurance management subsidiary in 2008, setting up and managing a number of captives and niche insurance entities that set up in Malta taking advantage of EU passporting rights and from there moved to WTW.

WTW specialises in risk analytics and captive feasibility studies in addition to the set up and management of captives and niche insurance underwriters, and I joined in 2012 in a purely client-facing role.

I advise clients on their captive insurance journey, including sitting on the boards of a number of captives and niche insurance underwriters in Malta and Luxembourg.

Who inspired you or acted as a mentor in your career?

I have had a number of very good mentors over the years, from the partners in the audit firm where I started my career, all the way to the CEO and financial director of the local insurance group. In terms of being inspired, apart from my parents who really encouraged me over the years, I was more inspired by the fact that I always wanted to have a rewarding career as opposed to a job and I always want to wake up in the morning and look forward to going to work. So any career decision is always driven by that.

What do you think deters people from entering the world of captives?

I don’t believe people should feel limited by anything. This might sound very idealistic, but as long as people are willing to learn and work for it, there should be no limit. However, the captive insurance world is rather specialised and is not known to all, therefore it might not be the first sector that comes to mind when people look at entering the insurance or financial services world.

We are now seeing more new entrants into the captives world, including smaller entities and groups that might not have considered a captive in the past, so I hope this will help expand the industry, encouraging more people to enter into it.

How can mentorship and sponsorship programmes be designed to better support the career development of women?

Mentorship and sponsorship programmes should not necessarily be defined with a specific gender in mind but should be created with a view to encourage people to enter and remain in the captive insurance world. In the case of women in particular, I would say that this includes supporting any decision to take a career sabbatical to raise a family.

We can realistically divide the captives world into two. At one end you have the risk managers within companies who act as the internal promoters of captives—mentorship and sponsorship there should be centred around how a captive can act as a risk management tool for the group, as a way it can be used as a data consolidator, how it can help groups improve their internal physical risk management processes, etc.

At the other end you have the captive managers and advisors—mentorship and sponsorship programmes would centre around management and technical training, from financial and insurance matters to actuarial to compliance and all the way to governance matters, ensuring that colleagues are always kept abreast of the latest developments in the market and in technology.

In what ways can companies in the sector create a more inclusive culture that actively promotes gender diversity at all levels?

In the same way as any company in any other sector: by ensuring that everyone has the same opportunity to grow with the entity, by ensuring that the tone at the top encompasses a culture of respect to all immaterial of gender, by acknowledging that diversity automatically brings in different viewpoints at the top and that success is possible only if those different viewpoints are there. Different views ensure a constant challenge through which ideas are born and the status quo can change.

“Different views ensure a constant challenge through which ideas are born and the status quo can change.“

What challenges are gender-specific to women in the captives industry?

When I first entered the captive insurance world, most of the insurance specialists, risk managers and captive experts were men, while most of the accountants and compliance specialists were women. With the passage of time, I do see this changing with more women entering the risk analytics and insurance world.

Perhaps the reason for this was that insurance and finance was traditionally a male-dominated world, and sometimes also an “old boys’ club” where deals were made over a drink. Is this still a challenge? I’m not sure. Is the captives and risk management world still male-dominated? I’d have to say it is—attending risk management forums or insurance conferences is testament to this.

What solutions would you like to see?

This all centres around education, and I don’t mean this purely from an academic point of view. I see it as ensuring that women in the insurance world are given the same opportunities as the men to express their views and to make their way up the ladder of success.

What are your ambitions?

To remain challenged in my work and happy to wake up in the morning and go to work.

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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