Crisis support for workplace violence and active shooter incidents
The business insurance community, including alternative risk management vehicles, is asking how it can mitigate exposures to workplace violence, or transfer them, to de-risking their risk portfolios with available commercial insurance, says Paul Marshall of McGowan Program Administrators, in the first of a four-part series about the impact and aftermath of an active shooter event.
Your guide through the captive maze
Quest is one of the best-known captive service companies in Bermuda and the US and has been forming and managing single parent, group, and association captives since 1979. Jeff Kenneson of Quest Captive Management talked to Captive International about Quest’s business and the trends he is seeing in the market.
Funding for employee benefits: one size doesn’t fit all
As the regulatory environment around the healthcare industry changes, so must employer attitudes and approaches to offering healthcare benefits. Making the switch from traditional health benefits insurance to a self-funded plan can have a number of advantages, principally cost savings and increased flexibility, says Emilie Gastley at Captive Alternatives.
Aligned interests
Insurers have always tried to ensure that the incentives of their clients align with their own. But captive insurers have fewer concerns around moral hazard than their commercial counterparts, says captive insurance consultant and retired principal of WTW, Hugh Rosenbaum.
The IRS’ tough pill
The IRS is on a winning streak against 831(b) captive insurance companies, and as such could afford to take a tough line in its settlement offer to some micro captives, says Matthew Queen of Venture Capital Management.
Captive governance and the investment portfolio
Too often in the past, captive boards have neglected to properly oversee the governance of their investment portfolios. But the governance of the captive board and the governance of the captive investment portfolio must be treated as one and the same thing, says Sara Hakim, senior vice president of Callan.
The importance of challenging the captive
A captive can be a powerful risk management tool, but it can become blunt and ineffective over time if it is not continually assessed and appraised, to ensure it remains efficiently structured and aligned with its owner’s objectives, says Ciarán Healy at Aon.
The next generation of risk cost measurement
TCOR is the industry standard model for tracking insurable costs, used by institutions across all industries to benchmark themselves against peers and historical trends, and by captives to determine reasonable insurability. It is a frustratingly limited measure of risk, so Randall Davis at Delphi Risk Management developed new models to do the job better, as he told Captive International.
What are you buying?
Insurance tends to be viewed as a contract, but in reality the choice between one insurance policy and another is more like the one a shopper makes when considering which of two widgets to buy, and that could have profound implications for legal disputes, says Matthew Queen of Venture Captive Management.
Building ‘Team Captive’
Captives allow owners to put their premiums to work and control and mitigate risk, while taking advantage of certain tax protections that are available, but bringing these benefits to reality is a team effort. The best captives are supported by teams with a unified mission and purpose, rather than teams that are purely transactional, says Geoff Still at TABS Insurance.
