11 June 2019Analysis

Captive industry must explore internships and partner with academia


The captive industry needs to work together to come up with ways to attract younger people into the industry.

That was the message from Dan Towle, president of the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) who was speaking at a panel discussion on How to Take Your Career as a Captive Professional to the Next Level at the Bermuda Captive Conference.

He was joined on the panel by Mitch Cantor, executive director of the International Centre for Captive Insurance Education and Santiago Garcia, global insurance manager at Caterpillar Financial Insurance Services.

Towle said: “We need to work together to come up with internship options. That is something we can partner over.

“We have to make it more interesting. People are put off by ‘insurance’, but this is about things like risk management which is much more interesting.”

The panel was asked what they and their organisations did to try and educate captive professionals and Garcia said he was a member of the BCOA which held events such as webinars.

Towle said he was trying to get young professionals interested in the industry and had recently launched an essay competition. “We also want to make sure young professionals are mentored and nurtured.”

Cantor added that his organisation was trying to work with people at a professional level. “We are also trying to partner with university and college programmes.”

The panelists all agreed that networking was also extremely important, especially at events such as the Bermuda Captive Conference.

“For most of us that is how we learned the business,” said Towle. “Everyone is happy to spend their time helping. It is a small space which is a tremendous asset and the industry is very supportive about helping each other.”

Cantor agreed, adding: “It is critical to talk to people at conferences.”

Asked how does the industry make the next generation interested in captives, Towle said: “Reaching out to younger students. I recently spoke at a university when I talked about some of the cutting edge aspects of captives.  It blew their minds.”