More global growth possible for captives: Aon survey

LONDON—Global captive growth does not yet appear to have reached saturation point, according to a study by London-based Aon Global Risk Consulting, a unit of Chicago-based Aon Corp.

Just over half of 1,500 companies across the globe studied by Aon do not have captives, the research showed.

Aon said that 53% of the so-called G1500 companies it studied did not have a captive.

Of the 564 U.S. companies studied, 58% use captives, and the utilization factor — the number of captives used per company — is 1.58 among U.S. corporations.

Among the next largest group of companies in the G1500, Japanese companies who made up 243 of the total, only 14% had a captive, and their utilization factor was 1.15.

Traditionally in Japan—as with other countries such as Germany—there have been close links between corporates and major insurers, and this has inhibited captive growth, according to Andrew Tunnicliffe, group managing director of business development at Aon Global Risk Consulting.

The most popular domicile for direct writing captives in the European Union and European Economic Area is Ireland, home to 99 of the captives operated by G1500 companies, according to the research.

The second-most popular domicile for E.U. or E.E.A.-based direct writing captives was Sweden with 14, followed by the Netherlands with nine captives.

Luxembourg, a reinsurance captive domicile, is home to 111 captives with G1500 parents, the study showed.