Marsh captive formations rise to 118 in 2025
Marsh formed 118 new risk retention entities in 2025, while managed captive premium grew to $79.1 billion.
The performance statistics were revealed at the Marsh Captive Solutions annual RIMS luncheon earlier today, where members of the captive team explained the trends they have seen over 2025.
The 118 figure is a significant uptick on the 92 formed in 2024, and came despite rates in the commercial insurance sector dropping by 4% in 2025. Marsh managed around 1,500 captives at the end of 2025.
Speaking in the presentation, Marsh Captive Solutions’ international consulting leader Rob Geraghty put this down to “captive resilience, adaptability, consistent strength and performance and long-term relevance in all market cycles.”
The premium figure is an increase on the $77 billion reported for 2024, with captive retentions increasing by 4% and ceded reinsurance from captives actually dropping to $11.5 billion from $13.4 billion.
“Companies that have captives becoming braver,” Geraghty added. “They believe in their captive strategy, are becoming more proactive, and they want to grow and move on this journey.”
The most popular lines of business written by new captives were property, excess and auto liability, and workers’ comp/cyber/E&O/EPLI, with Marsh Captive Solutions Americas consulting leader Julie Patel explaining that overall, property and casualty risks continued to be the largest risks written through captives.
Property is the single largest line among Marsh-managed captives with premiums of $9 billion, while across all casualty/liability risks, $22 billion is written. Employee benefits premiums are also rising, and now at $11 billion in Marsh-managed captives.
By industry, chemical companies were those that grew captive premium the most, by 126.8%, while education institutions also saw significant increases of 98.1%.
“A lot of that’s driven is market driven by markets pulling away. There are exclusions, and environmental risks such as PFAs,” Patel said. “The lines they are writing include property, cat exposures, liability, environmental, cyber, all on a direct as well as reinsurance basis.”
In terms of captive numbers, Patel revealed that over the past two years professional services firms have continued to grow, linked to market challenges with professional liability, E&O and cyber coverage.
“Captives are here to stay there across all industry sectors, and what we’re seeing is that rather than being reactive to the markets, they’re taking more of a proactive approach with their utilisation of captives,” Patel added.
Did you get value from this story? Sign up to our free daily newsletters and get stories like this sent straight to your inbox.
