Marsh captive governance head joins SRS Europe

SRS Europe has appointed Mary McMorrow as its head of governance, where she will help clients develop and implement governance approaches that add value within their operations.

McMorrow joins from Marsh Captive Management Dublin, where she served as a Solvency II Pillar 3 lead. While at Marsh she developed a standardised approach to governance reporting for Marsh captive clients across its European offices. Before that she served as compliance manager for the Irish branch of Europ Assistance SA, a multinational financial services firm.

Prior to joining the captive industry in 2007, McMorrow worked in Luxembourg where she held a senior role at Ernst & Young.

At SRS Europe, she will work closely with SRS Group governance practice leader Derick White, a former regulator with the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation.

"With a number of annual reporting cycles under the Solvency II regime complete, it is becoming more apparent that the industry needs to address what is an unproportionate approach to captive governance. SRS Europe has established a governance practice that offers customers services as part of overall management services or as an independent and dedicated separate layer to existing service providers", said Stuart King, president and CEO of SRS Europe.

King suggested there has been great demand for governance services from European captive owners frustrated with the current onerous governance requirements of Solvency II and the one size fits all approach from larger management firms.

He added: “We welcome Mary, a highly regarded professional, to our firm to help our clients approach governance in a compliant yet added value and proportionate manner. There is a danger that regulation can leave captive board members focusing too much time and resources on compliance and not enough on looking at opportunities for their captives to support their group's overall risk finance strategy.”

During 2019, SRS Europe is planning to support captive owners and industry representative bodies navigate EIOPA to seek a more proportionate and consistent approach to captive governance across Europe

McMorrow commented: “With a lot of practical experience in this area I believe good governance can add tremendous value to the effective running of a captive and its Board.”