Connecticut’s insurance regulator to promote captives among state’s accountancy firms

The State of Connecticut Insurance Department (SCID) will help accounting firms in the state to expand their presence in the captive insurance market.

SCID has engaged The National Network of Accountants (NNA) and Private Insurance Management to assist with the design and implementation of a programme.

“Accounting firms, as the trusted advisor to most mid-sized businesses, are best positioned to assist in the education and communication of the benefits of captive insurance companies to these businesses,” SCID said.

Janet Grace, programme director of SCID’s captive insurance division, said companies with captives have a layer of relief during the COVID-19 crisis that others do not. Specifically, most commercial business interruption policies have pandemic exclusions, while most equivalent policies written by captives do not.

“With the serious problems our state and our country are facing right now, we couldn’t think of a better time to educate our business community about risk management tools that are available to them, with which they might not be familiar, such as captives,” she added.

SCID said it wants to create an outreach and educational program to teach accounting firms about the benefits of captives, and how to identify clients that are most likely to benefit from them.

NNA has been training and providing educational resources for accounting firms across the country for almost three decades. “It’s all about education and communication,” said Joseph Tucciarone, NNA’s founder and chairman. “If we can get the accounting firms comfortable with the concept, I believe we can have a positive impact on businesses across the state of Connecticut and help them solidify their insurance and risk management planning.”