There are numerous risk financing options available to businesses today. For a variety of reasons, forming a pure captive or joining a group captive may not be the best option, in which case an efficient and cost-effective cell captive may be the best alternative. Due to their ease of implementation and cheaper operational expenses, cell captives are a preferred option to single parent captives. Cell facilities are set up in such a way that the assets and liabilities of the individual cells are legally separated. Companies that participate in the Isosceles and Mangrove cell captive facilities are protected from other participants’ loss experience, liabilities, and credit hazards. As a result, participants can avoid possible costs such as increased premiums or capital outlays that could develop in group captive arrangements if other participating enterprises have a history of poor loss experience or have more variable risk profiles.
A cell captive facility is a certified insurance vehicle or “cell” that has the infrastructure in place to let clients to participate in their own risks through a captive program. The cell is effectively rented by the insured operating business.
- Financing risk in which losses are foreseeable, such as workers’ compensation or auto liability.
- Insurance linked securities, weather derivatives, and other forms of collateralized (re)insurance
- Captives in the EU or non-EU/European Economic Area (EEA) looking to direct write/front.
- Market conditions may require the retention or funding of less predictable risks.
- Managing general agent (MGA)/managing general underwriter (MGU) firms and fronted customer/employee programs are examples of companies looking to reinsure fronted insurance business.
- Risks linked with a certain project, division, joint venture, or strategic relationship must be separated.
Participants in Marsh Captive Solutions’ cell captive facilities benefit from the skills and understanding of a global network of captive colleagues.
How does captive health insurance work?
A captive insurance program is made up of a collection of companies who pool their resources to form a fund, often known as a buying group. Employers can better manage their total cost of risk with captive programs, which provide them more control over health-care expenditures and more flexibility in benefit plan design.
Is captive insurance a good idea?
. Despite the fact that their execution and legal framework are frequently misunderstood, the financial benefits might be highly appealing. Captive insurance, according to some experts, is the best thing since sliced bread. Others are hesitant to involve their clients in the creation of a prisoner, knowing that the IRS closely monitors them. This article explains what captive insurance is and why the Internal Revenue Service frequently disputes it, as well as why, when done right, captive insurance can be a valuable instrument. The post also explains how to set up and run a captive to avoid IRS penalties.
Why do insurance companies use captives?
What is a Captive’s Purpose? To be clear, the aim of an insurance firm, and hence a captive, is to cover losses (your own losses) and provide you (the owner) greater control over your risk and any losses that do arise. Captives, to put it another way, are a risk transfer mechanism that is used to fund risk.
What does a cell captive insurer consist of?
A sponsored captive or rent-a-captive that keeps underwriting accounts distinct for each participant is known as a cell captive. Protected cell captive (PCC) or segregated cell insurer are two terms for the same thing. It could be utilized to securitize risk if the cells are lawfully segregated.
What are the disadvantages of captive insurance?
Because the company is effectively self-insured, it will need to raise a large sum of money to maintain in reserve in case of a claim. If the entity undervalues its need for protection or suffers a catastrophic loss, it may not have enough cash on hand to provide effective protection. If the corporation is forced to use other assets, this could have a significant negative impact on its bottom line.
What does captive mean in insurance terms?
A captive is a completely owned subsidiary created to offer insurance to its non-insurance parent firm in its most basic form (or companies). Captives are essentially a sort of self-insurance in which the insured owns the insurer outright. They’re usually set up to fulfill the owners’ or members’ specific risk-management requirements. Additionally, they may give large tax benefits, which may be critical to the company’s long-term viability and profitability. Captives are founded to cover a wide range of risks; virtually any risk that a commercial insurer will underwrite can be covered by a captive. A captive can be formed by any sort of company, from a huge multinational corporation (almost 90% of Fortune 500 companies have captive subsidiaries) to a charitable organization. The captive functions like any other commercial insurance firm after it is founded, and it is subject to state regulatory obligations such as reporting, capital, and reserve requirements.
Captive insurance firms have been around for more than a century. Frederic Reiss, a property-protection engineer in Youngstown, OH, created the term “captive insurance” in 1955. In 1962, Reiss founded Bermuda’s first captive insurance company. The captive market has seen substantial expansion during the last 30 years. According to AM Best Captive Center, there are about 7,000 hostages worldwide today, up from over 1,000 in 1980. Captives can be based and permitted in a variety of locations, both on and off the coast of the United States. The “domicile” of the captive is its major jurisdiction. The number of captive domiciles is increasing, and competition is fierce. Captive legislation exists in more than 70 jurisdictions. Bermuda is the greatest single jurisdiction in terms of captives, followed by the Cayman Islands. Guernsey, Luxembourg, and Ireland are the market leaders in Europe. Vermont is the largest domicile in the United States and is regarded as a pioneer in captive legislation.
- Any corporation that covers the risks of its parent and related companies, as well as controlled unaffiliated businesses, is known as a pure captive.
- Any domestic insurance company licensed for the purpose of making insurance and reinsurance under the terms of this article, including any company incorporated under the federal “Liability Risk Retention Act of 1986,” as amended, 15 U.S.C. 3901-3905. The risks, dangers, and liabilities of its group members, as well as employee benefit coverages, shall be covered by such insurance and reinsurance.
- Any entity that insures the risks of the association’s member organizations and their linked companies is known as an association captive.
- Industrial Captives: Any company that insures the risks of the industrial insured and their linked companies that make up the industrial insured group.
- Any alien captive licensed by the commissioner to transact insurance business through a business with its major place of business in the District is referred to as a branch captive.
- Rental Captives: A captive insurer designed to enter into contractual arrangements with policyholders or associations in order to provide some or all of the benefits of a captive insurance program while only insuring the policyholders or associations’ risks.
- Protected Cell Captives (also known as segregated cell hostages) are captives who are kept in a separate cell. Protected Cell Captives are identical to rental captives, with the exception that each user’s assets are legally protected from one another.
- Micro Captives are captive insurance companies with annual written premiums of less than $1.2 million. Smaller organizations that would otherwise struggle to create a captive can benefit from these.
- Risk Retention Groups: A captive insurer incorporated as a stock or mutual corporation, a reciprocal or other limited liability entity under 15 U.S.C. 3901-02.
Captives come in a wide range of sizes and shapes, allowing companies to tailor their strategies to their own needs. This diversity aids a company’s ability to finance risk in a manner that is appropriate to its specific dynamics and structure. Companies may afford to be innovative and agile in their short- and long-term risk-management strategy without being obliged to conform into a uniform captive model. And the list above is far from complete; as firms develop more sophisticated and imaginative methods to employ captives effectively, the list will continue to grow.
The NAIC and state insurance regulators have been focusing their attention in recent years on the life insurance industry’s use of captive insurance businesses to finance reserves required by existing requirements. For certain term life insurance plans, these reserves are known as “XXX reserves,” while for certain universal life insurance policies, they are known as “AXXX reserves.” When statutory reserves on these policies are deemed excessive or redundant, life insurers have increasingly turned to captive reinsurers to fund the redundant statutory reserves.
The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and state insurance regulators have made tremendous progress in bringing more standardization to captive reinsurance agreements. The NAIC Executive (EX) Committee and Plenary adopted Actuarial Guideline XLVIII (AG 48) in December 2014, and it went into effect on January 1, 2015. AG 48 is a key item needed to implement the XXX/AXXX Reinsurance Framework (Framework) as adopted in 2014. It defines the rules for new XXX and AXXX reserve financing transactions executed after the effective date and is a key item needed to implement the XXX/AXXX Reinsurance Framework (Framework) as adopted in 2014. A detailed action plan for life insurance reserve financing transactions is outlined in the Framework. Furthermore, the implementation of principle-based reserving (PBR) regulations for these transactions is likely to diminish the reserving incentive.
Furthermore, the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) listed variable annuity and long-term care captive transactions, as well as XXX/AXXX transactions, as areas of particular concern in its 2014 Annual Report. The NAIC Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee recently amended the Part A: Laws and Regulations Accreditation Preamble in response. Captive reinsurance transactions for XXX/AXXX, variable annuity, and long-term care business are now the focus of the modifications. The Variable Annuities Issues (E) Working Group was formed by the NAIC to “research and address, as appropriate, regulatory issues resulting in variable annuity captive reinsurance agreements.”
The Risk Retention Group (E) Task Force is considering risk retention groups (RRGs) that are formed as captives. The Group (E) Task Force released findings in November 2020 about how to establish greater standard regulation and oversight for risk retention groups that operate as captives.
Captives were traditionally founded by non-insurance corporations. Life insurers, on the other hand, turned to captives to “fund” ostensibly “reserve redundancies” required by Regulation XXXi and AXXXii. Life insurers’ captives and Special Purpose Vehicles (SPVs) differ significantly from captives employed by non-insurance corporations as a form of self-insurance.
Actuarial Guideline 48 (or AG 48) was adopted by the Principle-Based Reserving Implementation (EX) Task Force and has been in effect since January 1, 2015. The NAIC creates national guidelines for XXX/AXXX captive reinsurance transactions with the adoption of AG 48. The sorts of assets retained in a backup insurer’s statutory reserve are regulated by this guideline.
XXX/AXXX captive reserve trades are not prohibited under AG 48. It provides universal, national standards so that all businesses and authorities take the same approach, resulting in a significantly more fair playing field than now exists. For the most part, AG 48 is also relevant prospectively. It does not apply to policies issued before January 1, 2015, unless they are part of a captive reserve financing structure at the time AG 48 takes effect.
Part A: Laws and Regulations Accreditation Preamble was revised in May 2015 by the Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee. The amendments include captive insurers and special purpose vehicles (SPVs) in the accreditation program. Captives and SPVs that assume XXX or AXXX business, variable annuities, and long-term care business will be regulated under the new rules. The changes become effective on January 1, 2016.
Aside from XXX/AXXX, the NAIC started a project in 2015 to change the present reserving and RBC rules for variable annuities. Unlike the reserving issue for XXX/AXXX, this initiative is focused on the non-economic volatility that is purportedly produced by the current regulations, rather than the required quantity of reserves. Captives have been utilized by life insurance to help reduce non-economic volatility. The NAIC’s Financial Condition (E) Committee approved a new variable annuities framework and related charges to other NAIC groups in July 2018, paving the way for the necessary wording adjustments to existing statutory reserving requirements and capital requirements. PBR compliance has been necessary from January 1, 2020, unless an exception is granted on a case-by-case basis.
The Financial Regulation Standards and Accreditation (F) Committee approved the Term and Universal Life Insurance Reserve Financing Model Regulation (#787), also known as the XXX/AXXX model, as a new accreditation standard during the 2019 Fall National Meeting. On August 14, 2020, the Plenary adoption was concluded.
Actuarial Guideline XLVIII, which was approved by the Life Actuarial (A) Task Force on February 20, 2020, and the Life Insurance and Annuities (A) Committee on July 10, 2020, reaffirms the critical need for uniform national standards governing XXX and AXXX reserve financing arrangements in accordance with the PBRI (Principle-Based Reserving Implementation) Task Force framework. In 2020, a minor adjustment was made to match AG 48 with revisions to model #787. The sunset provision in AG 48 states that once Model #787 or a substantially equivalent regulation takes effect in a state, AG 48 becomes ineffective.
Because captive insurance is diverse and developing, prescribing one-size-fits-all review standards can be challenging. As a result, Actuarial Guideline XLVIII is a minimum requirement rather than a panacea for all possible scenarios. “A regulator should impose obligations in addition to those set out in this actuarial guideline if the facts and circumstances necessitate such action,” the Guideline states directly.
How do captives make money?
A captive insurance firm functions similarly to a regular property and casualty insurance company.
company of insurance A captive is responsible for issuing insurance, processing claims, and adhering to all applicable regulations.
regulations, files an income tax return for a property and casualty insurance company, and makes a profit,
If lucrative, insurance firm owners will have access to it. The distinction is that with an
The captive owner(s) chooses whether to retain or not to retain an insured-owned captive insurance firm.
Profits from the company should be distributed. In a traditional insurance company, the insurer and its agents work together.
The profits are retained by stockholders rather than the insureds.
We’ll go through how a captive is structured and set up in this article, as well as
how premiums are transferred from the captive owner’s company to the captive insurance company We
The captive owner’s ability to invest and maintain profits in the captive will also be discussed.
Profits from the captive are paid out in dividends.
While the terms of each arrangement may differ, captive insurance is commonly used.
premiums are paid to a ceding or fronting firm by the captive owner’s operating company.
which is a phrase used to denote the captive insurance business that underwrites the policy.
policy, or “writes the paper,” as the case may be. The insurance is issued by the company that wrote the document.
policy to the insured, the company that is obtaining coverage. After that, the captive is usually
through a typical type of arrangement known as a reinsures the fronting or ceding corporation “the quota
agreement to share
“A quota share agreement is a pro rata reinsurance contract in which the insurer bears a portion of the risk.
and the reinsurer’s share of premiums and losses is based on a defined percentage.
For instance, if the fronting and ceding companies each bear 50% of the risk,
The fronting or ceding company keeps half of the premiums. An example of a common quota sharing
risk-shifting agreement that complies with the Internal Revenue Service’s safe harbor regulations
A risk distribution is one in which at least half of the risk is shared.
For example, if an insured pays a fronting or ceding company $1 million in premium,
The fronting or ceding corporation would first keep or hold back $500,000 for claims.
The remaining $500,000 would be transferred to the reinsuring captive insurance provider.
The fronting or ceding corporation bears 50% of the risk. Following the initial holdback or pause,
After a claims history and an actuarial review, the fronting or ceding business keeps the policy.
When all of the factors are taken into account, the fronting or ceding corporation may be able to release half of the money.
Premium that was once held back is still available.
In this case, the original amount held aside is $500,000, and half of it is released.
An additional $250,000 has been released. Prior to release, the holdback is usually invested as a security deposit.
Interest earned or investment income on the insurance company’s reserve is usually included.
The cost of any claims is deducted from the remaining money. The remaining $250,000 (from the original $500,000)
The fronting or ceding company usually releases the $500,000 holdback after all policies have been completed.
issued by the fronting and ceding company have run out of time and have been given an extension.
time limit for filing claims
The extra claims period typically lasts 45 to 60 days after the policy expires.
The fronting or ceding business will typically transfer such assets after this 45-to-60-day timeframe.
remaining funds to the hostage, plus any investment income earned during the time the funds were held captive
retained, less a ceding fee and the amount of paid and pending claims. The use of a fronting or
The cost charged by a fronting or ceding company to the captive for issuing tickets is known as the ceding fee.
Insurance risk is pooled and policies are pooled.
What happens after the prisoner receives its food? This is a subject that captive owners frequently ask.
premiums from the ceding or fronting firm?
The profits of the prisoner are included in the surplus. Surplus funds (assets minus obligations) may be used for a variety of purposes.
be invested in accordance with the captive’s jurisdiction’s approved investment policy
licensed and regulated Surplus is also used to determine an insurance company’s profitability.
It is used in various financial ratios to analyze an insurance company’s economic strength or viability.
the viability of the business
Remember that, like any other business, a captive can pay dividends to its owner.
shareholders. Because captive dividends are normally eligible dividends, the distribution of captive dividends is not taxed.
A captive owner’s profits may be tax favorable. Remember that the procedure for
Receiving a dividend from a captive is more difficult than receiving one from a nonregulated company.
company. As a regulated and licensed insurance company, the permission of the regulator is usually required.
the department of insurance in the state where the captive is registered. To get started,
The captive owner (or owners) wants the captive insurance management to pay a dividend.
Obtain approval from the insurance department. The insurance is then examined by the department.
company financials to see how receiving a dividend affects the insurance company’s bottom line.
ratios, as well as the company’s ability to pay claims. Additional financial testing is also done by the department.
under the regulatory structure of the jurisdiction, as it thinks appropriate and expedient. In the event that the
When the captive manager’s request is approved by the department of insurance, the captive insurance company is formed.
A dividend payment from the captive may be issued by the firm.
A captive is a regulated, licensed business that must meet certain requirements in order to operate in a specific jurisdiction.
Insurance companies are required to follow all applicable rules and regulations. A company, like any other, has to make money.
The goal of a transaction between a captive investor and a shareholder is to make a profit while keeping the ownership.
critical capacity to control the hazards of the operational company Dividends are paid out once a business is profitable.
usually available within the regulatory framework of the Department of Insurance
for the benefit of the shareholders A captive insurance firm will need to be licensed and regulated like a business.
Many businesses require extra care and attention, but a captive’s unique capacity to manage
Insurance for a business can be transformed from an expense to a source of profit for its owners.
to a risk-management system that is lucrative
What is the difference between captive insurance and self-insurance?
The most important distinction to make between self-insurance and captive insurance is the way they are set up. Self-insurance entails the establishment of a form of savings account in which the owner saves money to be used in the event of a claim. Captive insurance, on the other hand, is more formal due to the fact that it is a small insurer.
Captives are safer than self-insureds because they have guarantees against losses. Self-insureds, on the other hand, only have a limited amount of money set aside. An employer who self-insures their health plan, for example, has no means of knowing if they will have enough money to cover claims. Because captives insure themselves against potential claims, they have additional incentives and risk management options than self-insurance schemes.
Understanding captive and self-insurance is critical because a company considering these choices must know how much risk it can take on and how equipped it is to handle claims. A solid risk management plan is the foundation of every successful self- or captive insurance program.
How are captives regulated?
Captive insurers are governed differently from standard insurance. The purpose of a captive is to finance one’s own risks and, to the extent possible, control one’s own risk money. Because of this fundamental difference, captive insurance is regulated differently than regular insurance.