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!

February 23, 2011: Are you overwhelmed by the actuarial loss reserve report and presentation that is before your captive board?  We can help!

Understanding Your Captive Board Loss Reserve Presentation is the latest complimentary course at CaptiveLearning.com.

This two-part course should help you be better prepared to understand your captive loss reserve report and its accompanying actuarial opinion.  Ken Carlton, Consulting Actuary with Milliman, explains the purposes of a captive loss reserve report, and clarifies why the report is important. The presentation even supplies an overview and details of the content of the report.  

The intended audience for the presentation is non-insurance professional members of captive boards of directors.  It should also be of value as orientation for inexperienced captive manager of in-house captive support, claims underwriting and risk control staff. The presentation is complimentary, but registration is required. [Take me there now!]

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.

May 27, 2011: Now available from the Highlights menu on the right side of the Milliman website at captive.com are two timely pieces of information on how PPACA might affect the captive insurance industry:

• First, download slides from the popular and timely presentation at the USA Risk Group annual conference in Charlotte entitled Impact of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” on Captives, delivered by Milliman's Bill Thompson. Bill expanded on these slides to explain what the Act does and does not do, then went on to explain challenges and possible opportunities for the captive insurance industry as various components of the Act are implemented.
• Second, we are reposting an article we made available earlier in 2011 on a similar topic -- PPACA. From the Highlights menu on the Milliman website, you will also see an excellent paper entitled Healthcare Reform - Potential Opportunities for Captives. In this white paper, Milliman's David Liner and Kathleey Ely articulate how the Act might affect captives that insure benefits for their employees.

• 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.

Two Spring Group complimentary webcasts were posted March 23, 2011 on the Conference Calendar: [Downloadable pdf on these events]:

• Captives for Healthcare Reform and Writing Employee Benefits in a Captive, May 17 at 2:00 p.m.
• Enhancing Capital Management Through a Captive, May 24, 2:00 p.m.

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.

10/21/2011: Does a captive make sense for your organization? An upcoming SRS online seminar can help! Visit the Conference Calendar to learn about Evaluating Captives – A Guide to the Feasibility Process, scheduled for October 26th, and register today. SRS seminars are complimentary but registration is required.

For more information, and to register online, visit https://strategicrisksevents.webex.com.

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

Richard Klumpp's Captive Insurance Brief -- A new blog about Captive Insurance ... one that I hope you will read, enjoy and reply to with your questions or comments.  

On June 16, 2011, Richard Klumpp's Wilmington Trust Captive Insurance Brief, takes on the topic, "What is the Role of Collateral in Captive Formation?" Richard begins, "Collateral is almost always required to create a successful captive insurance entity for two important reasons. Sufficient collateral helps to ensure the creditworthiness of the captive. And when properly structured, collateral also enables the company to avoid a serious regulatory penalty. In short, the role of collateral is to..."

I left you hanging, so you'll have to follow this link to read this week's article, and don't forget to dowload Wilmington Trust's complimentary guide: Captive 101 – a complete guide to the pros and cons of establishing a captive insurance company. Great stuff!

Two helpful presentations posted by Kerr, Russell & Weber:

• A panel discussion from the December 2008 Cayman Captive Forum: Strong Planning, Operational and Tax Strategies for Group Captives
  
  
• CAPTIVE INSURANCE: Primer and Federal Tax Overview.

Captive.com wishes to thank Brenda Olson from ORG Captive Management in Montana and Tom Jones from McDermott, Will & Emery in Chicago, both of whom sent us the full text of the just-released IRS proposed regs re PCC/Series LLC tax treatment.  Tom has also shared the PowerPoint slides that he used in his presentation on this topic at the recent SCCIA Conference. 

The IRS proposal is “must reading” for domestic and foreign PCC and Series LLC constituents as the IRS is attempting to clarify whether a cell or series is recognized as an entity for US federal tax purposes.   The rule will provide much-needed clarification.  Stakeholders have a 90-day window to file comments with the IRS.

[Download Proposed IRS regs]
[Download Tom Jones Presentation Slides on this topic]

• 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.

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.