CaptiveLearning.com is open and ready for your participation, 24/7! Learn about the website's purpose and history in a PowerPoint/Video presentation developed by John Salisbury and Chris Mancini!

May 12, 2010: How might a rural hospital solve a looming problem of large increases in medical liability premiums that threaten its very existence? What's to be done in the absence of an insurance carrier willing to carry the hospital's risk at an acceptable price? A new case study video entitled A Captive Solution for Your Hospital, developed by Milliman, illustrates just how the hospital solved its problem by creating a captive insurance company. Visit CaptiveLearning.com to view A Captive Solution for Your Hospital and many more complimentary and pay-per-view courses and presentations.

May 6, 2010: Preparing an Annual Captive Governance Work Plan is now available to visitors on a complimentary basis! This is the second offering in the Captive Governance Course Series. We suggest that you take the first segment, Captive Governance Best Practices first, to lay the groundwork for the Captive Governance Work Plan course. Both course modules are an opportunity for board members, captive managers, and captive owners to refine their captive's best practices!

Why must a captive pledge collateral to a fronting carrier? What types of collateral are acceptable? What are the characteristics, advantages, and disadvantages of each?

Marty Ellis from Comerica Bank answers these questions and more in a brand new course presentation just activated at CaptiveLearning.com -- Captive Collateral Options. The PowerPoint/Audio course is complimentary, but registration is required. Once the presentation launches, sit back and enjoy -- you won't even need to touch your computer keyboard! This presentation does not include testing or a forum in its aftermath, but should you wish to contact Marty after listening, his contact information is available from the Comerica Bank captive website as well as the Captive Yellow Pages.

Follow this link to go directly to the course, generously developed and sponsored by Comerica Bank.

Other courses, both complimentary and pay-per-view, are now available at the site:

We have partnered with WebCE, a nationwide provider of Continuing Education for insurance professionals, to deliver all of the commercial insurance web-based courses you need to fulfill continuing ed requirements to maintain a variety of commercial insurance-related licenses. Costs are stunningly reasonable.

The Feasibility Study is the first of a ten course Captive Practices and Procedures series presented by Kathryn A. Westover. The course is presented in a video/PowerPoint format, and is available for $69.

Ten Best Practices for a Successful Captive, developed and sponsored by Callum Beaton, is a detailed PowerPoint Audio course being offered for $99. In this course, Callum shares the best practices he has gleaned from more than twenty years of experience in establishing, managing and directing captive insurances companies, working on the London market, lecturing and traveling internationally to captive domiciles. An excellent course, well worth the cost.

Visit CaptiveLearning.com and register as a guest to view John Salisbury's new PowerPoint/Audio course entitled Captive Governance Best Practices, is available on a complimentary basis.

The follow-on course to Captive Governance Best Practices in the Captive Governance Course Series is entitled Preparing an Annual Captive Governance Work Plan. Here is an opportunity to learn in more detail about this essential Captive Governance Best Practice. This course is also complimentary.

E-mail us with your suggestions and feedback. We look forward to hearing from industry professionals who are interested in sponsoring or developing courses that Take Aim At Captive Excellence!

Artex Risk Solutions held a complimentary webinar introducing their newest product: ! This event took place on July 29, 2009, but it's not to late to listen in. Use this link to access this webinar and more, including:

Professional Employer Organizations (PEOs)
Warehouse Legal Liability / IWLA Program
Single Parent Captives
Group Captives - Solutions for mid-market risks.
Captives Overview - 2009

Captive & ART Investments 101, Part One

Welcome to the first edition of the new CapVisor educational series “Captive & ART Investments 101”. Designed specifically to enable advisors to the alternative risk markets to better understand and interpret investment management strategies for their clients, our multi-part series addresses fixed income fundamentals.

This edition covers Sectors. Sector rotation is a key strategy for all bond investors and is typically a steady producer of excess returns to insurance reserve portfolios when properly executed. We chose “Sectors” due to the fact that last year’s returns in fixed income markets were heavily driven by decisions regarding which sectors were over-weighted in client portfolios. We hope that you find this piece, along with future tutorials, to be of interest and help in increasing your knowledge in your efforts to better guide your clients toward appropriate strategies and resources to optimize their investment management process.

• Terese Rosenthal, Munich Re US Spokesperson
• Carl Hedde, Head of Risk Accumulation, Munich Reinsurance America
• Prof. Dr. Peter Höppe, Head of Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Center, Munich Re
• Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, President, Insurance Information Institute

Follow this link to register for this event, or use this e-mail link for webinar information.

SRS Webinars: SRS is an industry leader in providing education to clients, brokers, consultants, regulators and other industry professionals. SRS's goal is to hold a webinar a month. These one hour sessions cover topics of interest which include domicile reviews, investment strategies, actuarial processes, tax updates and current topics of interest to our clients and associates. Sessions are offered as a service to our industry at no charge to participants. Registration is required.

Thursday, July 1, at 1:00 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time is the date for a webinar that anybody new to the captive industry won't want to miss -- Basics of Captives.

This primer on captive insurance will provide you with essential information to understand the use of captives, particularly in the middle market. Topics covered in the webinar will include:

• The reasons for forming a captive
• The expected benefits to be gained from forming a captive
• Key issues in putting together a successful captive program
• Different types of captives and where they may apply
• The use of the 831B tax provision for smaller captives; and
• The capital requirements of a captive

At the end of the session, attendees should be able to identify situations that would be suitable for a captive solution. This webinar is suitable for anyone considering a captive or looking to expand their knowledge of captives. For those familiar with captives this is a good refresher on the fundamentals of setting up and managing a successful captive.

Register online for the latest SRS webinar at https://strategicrisksevents.webex.com.

Missed a webinar? To view recent webinars and listen to their recordings, visit www.strategicrisks.com/webinars.php.

• Terese Rosenthal, Munich Re US Spokesperson
• Carl Hedde, Head of Risk Accumulation, Munich Reinsurance America
• Prof. Dr. Peter Höppe, Head of Geo Risks Research/Corporate Climate Center, Munich Re
• Dr. Robert P. Hartwig, President, Insurance Information Institute

Follow this link to register for this event, or use this e-mail link for webinar information.

Follow this link to go directly to Strategic Risk Solutions (SRS) June 2009 webinar entitled, "Surviving in a Tough Market – A Group Captive Case Study." Over the last few years, group captives have faced strong competition from the commercial market. Many have lost members and some have not survived. With the downturn in the economy, captives are also now facing pressure for the return of capital and surplus. In this webinar we look at CS Insurance, a contractor group captive which has faced both these pressures but is surviving.

Recordings of the most recent SRS webinars can be accessed from www.strategicrisks.com/webinars.php.

The time is right to resume a discussion on the potential benefits of Captive Accreditation. Captive.com's own John Salisbury participated in an excellent, albeit controversial, presentation on this topic at World Captive Forum. The issue is likely to be discussed widely at the upcoming CICA Conference, so we wanted you to have the benefit of John's annotated presentation slides prior to that event. We will add an article next week detailing WCF presentation, along with the conversation it generated.

Download John's well-annotated Captive Accreditation presentation now, and feel free to e-mail us with your thoughts on this topic. In order to view John's annotations, save the PowerPoint file to your hard drive, then open it from your local computer.

Download four PowerPoint presentations from Bruce Wright at Dewey & LeBoeuf:

“DISTRIBUTION OF CAPTIVE PROFITS” from the Atlas Legal, Tax and Financial Aspects of Captive Insurance Companies Conference in San Francisco, July 11-12, 2005.

“OVERVIEW OF CAPTIVE TAX AND REGULATORY CONSIDERATIONS” from the Atlas Legal, Tax and Financial Aspects of Captive Insurance Companies Conference in San Francisco, July 11-12, 2005.

“EMPLOYEE BENEFITS AND CAPTIVES©” from the Atlas Legal, Tax and Financial Aspects of Captive Insurance Companies Conference in San Francisco, July 11-12, 2005.

“UNDERSTANDING KEY ELEMENTS OF GROUP CAPTIVES AND RISK RETENTION GROUPS©” from the IBC 9th Annual International Captives Congress in Orlando, June 13-15, 2005

Recently, the IRS analyzed 4 hypothetical captive arrangements and concluded that 3 of the 4 lacked risk distribution, a hallmark of “insurance” status. The ruling that clarified this issue was Rev Rul 2005-40.

We asked Tom Jones of McDermott, Will & Emery -- one of captive.com's favorite taxation experts -- to help us explain the impact of this ruling to our visitors. We think you will find this brief, information-packed presentation most helpful.

This well-received presentation by Milliman's Bill Thompson was delivered in December 2004 at the SCCIA Fifth Annual Executive Educational Conference. The slides are "meaty" and informative, and answer these questions and more:

• Why are employers using their captive for employee benefits?
• Who has done it so far?
• How have the existing transactions been structured?
• What are the primary issues that employers need to evaluate?
• How do you make it happen?
• What does the future hold?
  

“Creating A Virtual Captive” is the title of a case study presentation of how Government Entities Mutual (GEM) developed a virtual infrastructure within sixty days after it started operations on January 1, 2003. The presentation was delivered by GEM President John Salisbury at the recent CICA annual conference. It can be viewed here on captive.com.

GEM is a captive domiciled in DC with 2003 net written premiums of $4.5 million. The Company has three full-time staff and contracts services with several service providers. The presentation details how a capital investment of less than $110,000 made a robust captive infrastructure a reality.

John’s avocation is serving as a principal at captive.com where he shares his many years of experience as a captive and group self-insurance program experience with others.

Monte Jahnke from Kerr, Russell & Weber participated in a panel that delivered this fine presentation at the Cayman 2003 Captive Forum in December.

While much of the information on governance applies to all captive domiciles, Cayman's governance issues are covered in detail. The presentation includes both slides and full supporting articles that deliver the topic to you in considerable depth. We are confident that you will love this one!

The Fog Lifts on Tax Definition of 'Insurance, presented by Tom Jones of McDermott, Will & Emery.

Some visitors have reported problems using this presentation. An alternative is to download the Power Point file directly to your hard drive.