World Captive Forum 2026 Organizers on Strategy, Resilience, and AI

The Business Insurance World Captive Forum has been a cornerstone event in the captive insurance calendar since its inception in 1991—bringing together owners, managers, brokers, regulators, and service providers for three days of deep-dive education, networking, and strategic insight into the evolving captive landscape.  

Scheduled for February 4–6, 2026, at the JW Marriott Orlando Grande Lakes, this year's World Captive Forum offers more than two dozen sessions covering topics from captive insurance foundations and tax updates to emerging structures like cell captives, employee benefits strategies, investment outlooks, and frontier risk topics like artificial intelligence (AI) and parametrics.  

To help our Captive.com audience better understand the vision behind the event and explore what's new and noteworthy, we spoke with the Forum's organizers about the goals, themes, and industry trends shaping this year's program. 

What overarching theme or industry challenge influenced this year's agenda—and how does it reflect the current priorities of captive owners and managers? 

The agenda reflects captive managers' and owners' desires to build future captive programs while maintaining strong fundamentals. The sessions focus on resilience while exploring how to use captives more strategically, whether as profit centers or vehicles to cover emerging risks. In essence, keep what works but don't stand still. 

The agenda includes sessions that span fundamentals, regulatory developments, and emerging trends such as AI and profit-center captives. How do you balance the needs of newcomers with those of seasoned captive professionals when shaping the program?

The conference agenda includes a specific session for newcomers—the Pre-Conference 101 Session—but other sessions are intended for anyone with a basic knowledge of risk management and commercial insurance. While experienced professionals might get more out of sessions on more complex topics, all sessions will be accessible to less experienced participants. 

Networking has always been a core part of the World Captive Forum. With events like roundtables, receptions, and 1-on-1 interactions, how do you aim to facilitate meaningful connections among attendees?  

We design the networking to be purposeful. The smaller roundtables encourage peer-to-peer problem-solving while the informal events create opportunities for candid conversations that don't always occur in a general session. By bringing together owners, managers, regulators, and advisers in multiple formats, we help attendees build relationships that extend well beyond the Forum itself. 

What trends or shifts in captive insurance—such as the use of captives in employee benefits, global regulatory changes, or investment strategy evolution—do you expect will be most influential for attendees in 2026 and beyond?  

We expect continued interest in employee benefits captives as more companies see the success of other captive owners and more developments around regulation and compliance, especially with the growing number of domiciles. Technology, including AI and data analytics, will also play a larger role in decision-making and governance.  

Looking forward, how do you envision the Forum evolving in the next few years—particularly in terms of content, audience composition, or its role in the broader captive ecosystem? 

The Forum will continue to evolve as the captive industry evolves. We expect broader participation from non-traditional captive users and service providers—for example, we have seen growing interest in captives participating in parametric programs—and deeper dives into strategy and innovation. Our role is to remain the place where the captive community comes together—not just to learn, but to exchange ideas and help shape the future direction of the industry.