Prospects strong for captives: Panelists

Captives will emerge from the current pandemic stronger and more valued, experts say.

Anne Marie Towle, Indianapolis-based senior vice president of Hylant Group Inc., who leads its global captive solutions business, said that exiting from the pandemic will be a slower process than everyone has been hoping for. “I think we’re in for a tough year ahead,” but this will prove to be an opportunity for captives, “where we can step in and create innovation and partnerships.”

Ms. Towle was among the speakers at a session on “Captives: Creating Capacity and Opportunity in a Changing Market” at Business Insurance’s virtual World Captive Forum on Wednesday.

Captives will emerge stronger and more capable “than I think we were even a year or two ago,” with what they have learned about managing risks, said Michael Maglaras, Ashford, Connecticut-based principal with insurance and risk management consultancy Michael Maglaras & Co. “We are a global community, and will be poised to achieve greatness,” he said. “I’m absolutely convinced of that.”

Deyna Feng, director, captive programs, for Columbus, Indiana-based Cummins Inc., a power technology company, said, “We’re really thinking about risk appetite” and strategy for the future.

The next step is to think about bringing new and emerging risks into the captive, she said. The company wants to make sure it can manage and quickly respond to any claim, so the business can resume as soon as possible, without necessarily relying on commercial insurers. 

Cummins also wants to use the captive for risk mitigation, Ms. Feng said, using it to access the reinsurance market “instead of relying on the whole tower to tell us how to buy insurance.”

Ms. Towle said making the captive “core and central” to decision-making is a great model, and that she is seeing it adopted among more sophisticated organizations.

The session was moderated by Christine Brown, assistant director of captive insurance at the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation in Montpelier.

 For more information on the World Captive Forum, click here.