Influential Women in Captive Insurance: Anne Marie Towle
Anne Marie Towle, Chief executive, Global Risk & Captive Solutions, Hylant
A veteran of the captive insurance industry, Anne Marie Towle leads the Global Risk & Captive Solutions team at Hylant.
She has 30 years of experience with diverse projects and has worked with captives and other alternative risk transfer vehicles in many key onshore and offshore domiciles. She manages captive projects through feasibility and implementation, developing unique customised structures tailored to each client’s needs. She has been instrumental in arranging fronting and reinsurance programmes for her captive clients.
Prior to joining Hylant, Towle was an executive vice president with JLT, and a senior consultant with Willis Towers Watson for more than seven years. She also spent time as a senior manager in public accounting and 10 years in taxation, where she provided consultancy services to captive owners. She managed client projects through feasibility and implementation processes in structuring captives and managed their accounting and tax compliance functions.
Before that, Towle worked in private industry in the insurance tax departments of several Fortune 500 insurance and financial institution companies.
Throughout her career, Towle has been closely involved in captive insurance organisations at the local, state and national level. She serves on the board of directors for the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) and the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE); the curriculum committee for ICCIE and an instructor for ICCIE courses; chair of ICCIE, and the conference committees of the VCIA (2017 chair), Captive Insurance Companies Association, World Captive Forum, the South Carolina Captive Insurance Association and Hawaii Captive Insurance Council.
How did you get started in the captive insurance industry?
Years ago, I was working as a CPA doing tax advisory and compliance work at EY. I had an insurance company client and they had a captive, and I then become more well-versed over the next few years and expanded to further knowledge in this wonderful industry.
Who inspired you or acted as a mentor in your career?
I have been fortunate to have several key mentors in my career. During college, I had a wonderful female tax professor who inspired me to seek a career in taxation, back in the late 1980s when there weren’t many women pursuing tax as a career.
During my public accounting days, I had a male mentor who taught me the nuances of captives and responded to my numerous questions. In my first foray to large global brokerage with captive consulting and management, I had another amazing woman who provided insightful and impactful advice to me and aided me in my career direction.
I have these three people and many others I have met on my journey in my career to thank for their honest feedback, guidance, and support.
What do you think deters people from entering the world of captives?
The largest element behind people not entering the world of captives is the lack of knowledge and understanding of what is the captive insurance industry. We need to do a better job as an entire industry of educating people on the career opportunities that exist within the captives sector.
Captive insurance is not widely taught at the college/university level so the limited exposure to the opportunities which exist.
How can mentorship and sponsorship programmes be designed to better support the career development of women?
I firmly believe programmes such as CICA’s Amplify Women, and I am the current chair of the committee, are aiding in educating our industry of the resources available. We are working diligently to spread the messaging to college and university students and young professionals to make them aware of the tremendous resources to support career growth.
We need to continue as an industry to communicate and highlight the value of mentorship and taking the time to share impactful stories of success.
In what ways can companies in the sector create a more inclusive culture that actively promotes gender diversity at all levels?
In order to create a more inclusive culture, we need to be our authentic selves, with people sharing their stories and how they have been successful. We need to create a culture where people want to stay, they have micro-experiences every day and the experience of belonging—in the sense that we want and support diversity at all levels of an organisation.
Organisations where people feel they belong create loyalty and commitment from the employees. This will enhance career success opportunities and create value for an organisation.
What challenges are gender-specific to women in the captives industry?
“The gender equity pay gap still exists and needs to be rectified for the future generations of professional women.”
I see a couple of items as challenges for women in the captives sector:
At different points in a woman’s career, she sometimes needs to step away for family or personal reasons—a partner, child or parent requires care. This can at times slow down the natural progression of one’s career—we need to address this with promotions and other rewards for those who are committed.
The gender equity pay gap still exists and needs to be rectified for the future generations of professional women.
What are your ambitions?
My personal ambitions are to create a more diverse captive insurance industry with a legacy of mentoring, teaching, introducing and passing along my knowledge of the sectors to the next generation of professionals.
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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