Sun Life Financial and Pareto Captive Services in October 2017 announced a new stop-loss group captive solution, Legend Re, which will be available in the U.S. for policies effective January 1, 2018. The initiative is designed to reduce claims volatility for small and medium self-funded employers or fully-insured employers transitioning to self-funding in order to realize cost savings. Employers in a group captive typically have under 500 employees, are

Interest in using captive programs as risk-management tools has been slowly growing within the Employee Benefits (EB) community for some time. But recently it has been gaining momentum, as multinational corporations have begun to realize the potential the concept holds.

The management of employee benefit plans through captives continues to gain traction with multinational corporations in all sectors of industry. Captives are rarely the beginning but generally the end point of a risk management journey. Every journey has a starting point, of course. This year’s European Captive Forum (ECF) in Luxembourg included several employee benefit related breakout sessions. One was called “Getting Started – What Do You Need to Consider and What Is the Role of HR?”

The 2017 edition of the World Captive Forum will take place from January 29 to 31, 2017, in Boca Raton, Florida. The two-day main program includes several sessions on employee benefits captives, including “Adding Benefits to Your Property/Casualty Captive”, “Medical Stop-Loss: Single-Parent and Group Captive Solutions”, “Medical Stop-Loss: Single-Parent and Group Captive Solutions”, “Benefits Data: Its Role in Rating and Reserving”, “Legal and Regulatory Update for Benefits Captive Programs”

Insurance broker and risk advisor Marsh in May 2016 announced that Nick Durant will lead Marsh’s Global Captive Solutions Practice, taking over from Chris Lay, who has been named President and CEO of Marsh Canada. Mr. Durant will be based in New York and report to John Drzik, President of Marsh’s Global Risk and Specialties division. Mr. Durant most recently served as Marsh’s global analytics sales leader. Prior to joining

The 2016 edition of the European Captive Forum will be held in Luxembourg on 8 and 9  November 2016. The 2016 agenda is not yet available, but it is worth noting that six sessions of the 2014 edition out of 37 were devoted to employee benefits or life insurance, as opposed to the ever-dominant theme, non-life coverages. That proportion is significantly higher than the prevalence of employee benefits among

Most multinational companies have a single property and casualty insurance policy that covers their factories and offices around the world in case of flood or fire or theft. But when it comes to global employee benefits, many have a different contract—or even many more than one—for each country, through several brokers, and a pooling or captive arrangement to boot.

Captive insurance has been an increasingly popular alternative risk transfer mechanism for U.S. companies for decades. But what may come as a surprise is that one of the great growth opportunities isn’t a new property or casualty exposure. It’s employee benefits. Some seemingly minor changes in the U.S. regulatory landscape may go a long way in explaining the renewed interest in employee benefits captives – but read on: Peter

Zurich presented the “Zurich International Programs for Employees” at the October 2015 biannual meeting of the Federation of European Risk Management Associations (FERMA). The new product, to be launched in 2016, allows multinationals to manage their employee benefits coverages through a single global program, combining local policies with cross-border policies; as well as providing centralized data and reports. From a marketing standpoint, the new product is aimed squarely at

For many employers the largest liability related to employees after payroll-related cost is employee benefits. Subject to a turbulent and volatile past, now largely over, some management vestiges remain. Employers should examine the management of employee benefits and how tailored it is to their company’s current risk profile and cash flow. Certainly captives require more administration and an empowered internal advocate who can maximize utilization. But for mid-size and

Captive insurance has been an increasingly popular alternative risk transfer mechanism for U.S. companies for decades. But what may come as a surprise is that one of the great growth opportunities isn’t a new property or casualty exposure. It’s employee benefits.

From the October 2015 Baden-Baden Reinsurance Meeting. The consolidation of the reinsurance industry that is being observed in 2015 apparently is driven by capacity overload, successive years of rate declines and persistently falling profitability. But are mergers and acquisitions (M&As) the right answer? Of course, sheer scale matters but the upside of better mutualization hits its limits fairly quickly and unmanaged diversification is fraught with dangers. In fact, new

Captive solutions were created in the late 19th century to provide more flexible solutions in the insurance market. Since then they have evolved to become a practical form of risk management, offering multinationals two financial advantages: lower costs and more control over how they are insured.

When it comes to extracting the true value from employee benefit captive risk financing, it’s not just about the direct cost savings anymore, says Tony Hore of Allianz. Here he shares some thoughts, interspersed with real-world case studies from his exclusive interview with Global Benefits Visions’ editorial staff.