Airmic 2021: How captives are changing the conversation for insurance buyers

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Post-Brexit the UK government is looking for areas where the insurance market can “demonstrate economic success”, as well as understanding what is needed to make this happen, according to Owen Williams, global programme and captive regional director for the UK and Nordics at AXA XL.

Williams added that the “interesting element” to this discussion is that some businesses want “super relaxed regulation”, whereas others want equivalent frameworks to remain in place. Therefore, “balancing those things can be quite tricky”, he said.

According to Williams, creating a capital domicile environment in the UK is just one of the streams that the London market is currently exploring.

Williams was speaking as part of a hub session at Airmic Conference 2021 titled Back in fashion and there’s no going back: How captives are changing the conversation for insurance buyers.

He was joined by IPT client and engagement director at TMF Group, chair of the marketing development committee at Guernsey International Insurance Association Peter Child, and Barry Beard – director of European global services and complex multinational at Chubb.

The session was moderated by Richard Cutcher, captive ambassador at Airmic.

If insurers want to have a “robust regime”, Beard said that businesses should understand whether the captive is set up for the long-term, as well as determine that it is “not taking advantage of a short-term solution”, he added.

Chubb, for example, aims to understand how the captive is set-up and what is the capital.

He said: “There’s minimum capital requirements in some territories but the captive needs to be funded for the risk it’s assuming, so it’s all those discussions around how many lines of business, what limits, what aggregate limits [and] getting comfortable with that.”