Category Archives: World Captive Forum

Reflecting on One Year In as VCIA President

Posted on by
Reply

Almost a year ago, before I even joined the VCIA, I attended the World Captive Forum in Miami, and well, here I am again, learning and networking. And what a year it has been, my first as VCIA President! More on that in a future blog, but I am happy to report that there is further evidence here at this event of the resilience and growth in the captive industry. Right now, I am sitting in on the regulatory panel (featuring Vermont’s own Sandy Bigglestone), and every domicile present is talking about growth, new product lines and innovation across the board.

Vermont and VCIA had a productive (and fun!) World Captive Forum

For Vermont and VCIA it has been a great event, strengthening our stakeholder relationships and building new ones.

We also debuted the new Vermont booth – please pay no attention to the fact that 4 captive professionals working collaboratively could not get the lights on right!  Despite that, the booth looks great (we fixed the lights) and certainly acted as a beacon within the exhibit hall. Vermont is off to the races to try to top last year’s 41 new captive count!

I met a fellow Mead in the exhibit hall!

I also got to fulfill on my mantra of ‘cooperate to grow the pie, compete for a larger slice’ by visiting with the other domiciles present to specifically invite them to the VCIA’s Annual Conference in August. While many already attend, I was happy to invite them to come as exhibitors. The greatest accolade that we could get for the VCIA Conference would be when an attendee says ‘I attended the event and got the solution I needed.’ Of course, I would be delighted if that solution was Vermont, but I must also recognize that there are many offerings in the marketplace. So far, we’ve gained great interest in other domiciles/associations for our booth spaces!

That’s all for my live World Captive Forum reporting. Sad to say we New Englanders must leave sunny Miami and return to Vermont with a temperature shift of 107°F forecast. Winter may be hard, but it won’t last forever in the Green Mountain State, and the closer spring approaches means the closer our 2023 conference cycle starts!

This Week’s All Stars

Posted on by
Reply
Some of the many Captive All-Stars who presented this week at WCF — Bravo all!

I attended the virtual World Captive Forum this week and it was great to see many friends over the two days. I was working the Vermont booth (remember those days…) so was not able to see all of it, but there was some good stuff on several sessions I was able to join.

The regulators panel with Vermont’s own Dave Provost, Deputy Commissioner – Captive Insurance, Vermont Department of Financial Regulation; Carl Culmer Jr., Manager – Policies and Practices, Insurance Commission of The Bahamas; and Travis Wegkamp, Director of Captive Insurance, Utah Insurance Department was ably moderated by Joe Holahan of Morris Manning & Martin LLP (and member of VCIA’s Legislative Committee). It was good to hear that each domicile was more or less in synch with each other as they discussed legislative and policy updates, new and emerging risks, and the outlook for the captive industry post-pandemic.

Dennis Silvia, Davies Captive Management and VCIA board member, did a super job with his panel, The Art of the Cell (very clever!), outlining the dramatic increase in the popularity of the use of cells and how they are currently being utilized in risk financing programs.

The topic of the hard market and evolving global risk landscape was of course a prominent area of focus throughout the conference. Another terrific panel highlighted the importance of captives in long-term risk financing and risk management planning. Deyna Feng, Director, Captive Programs at Cummins Inc.; Mike Maglaras, President of Michael Maglaras & Company; and Anne Marie Towle, Global Captives Insurance Leader of Hylant (another VCIA board member) discussed how companies are re-defining their risk appetite to take control of their own destiny by using captives to complement traditional insurance placements and fill coverage gaps. Anyone who has not yet had an opportunity to meet Christine Brown, Assistant Director of the Captive Division in Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation, moderator of the session, should check out this rising star!

And speaking of the captive insurance firmament, the all-star panel of Sandy Bigglestone, Director of Captive Insurance at Vermont’s Department of Financial Regulation (Women to Watch winner 2018); Ellen Charnley, President of Marsh Captive Solutions (Women to Watch winner 2018); Karen Hsi, Program Manager- Captive Programs, University of California Office (Break Out winner 2020); and Amy Evans, Executive Vice President, Intercare (Women to Watch winner 2020) did an amazing job explaining why captives are well suited for crises such as a pandemic, hardening market and social unrest.

Great job all around!

An update from my blog on February 5th challenging you to identify the people in the 80’s era photo. Maria Young of Alcoa, who was present at the party, won the box of chocolates for identifying most of the group. She was an insider, but there was nothing in the rules that said the people there could not answer! Here is who was in the photo:

Diane Leach; Mary Wrenn (now Woodward); Gary O’Hare ; Maria Young; Cynthia Reer (now O’Connor); Sue Urie; Jeff Kenneson; Scott Whittemore; Kate Westover; Nikki Kuhn.

Thank you and I look forward to hearing from you.

Rich Smith
VCIA President