Captive Industry Guidelines Released

by Leroy Baker, Tax-News.com, New York

26 May 2010

Service providers in the captive insurance industry worldwide now have the benefit of a new set of best practice guidelines that the Cayman Islands Monetary Authority (CIMA) has contributed to developing.

The document, Captive Best Practices Guidelines Volume 2 - Utilizing Service Providers, was recently released by the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA), a multi-jurisdictional grouping of owners, administrators and managers of captive insurance companies or risk retention groups, and their service providers.

The guidelines contained in the volume are considered as best practices for captive service providers. The volume outlines what captive owners and regulators should expect from captive managers, actuaries, consultants, auditors, and attorneys.

It covers principles that service providers should follow during the prefeasibility, feasibility and formation stages of a captive, as well as during the company’s life and when the company is being closed. It also gives guidance on how owners should measure service providers’ performance.

The set of best practices was developed through advisory groups representing owners, regulators, and service providers. CIMA, through its Head of Insurance, Gordon Rowell, was one of eight jurisdictional supervisory bodies in the regulator group. The other regulators were from Bermuda, Guernsey, and the US states of Kentucky, Montana, South Carolina, Vermont, and the District of Columbia.

CIMA’s Managing Director, Cindy Scotland, said CIMA fully supported both best practice guidelines: “We volunteered to be part of the development of the guidelines because we agreed with CICA that the initiative was important in the process of continuous improvement for the captive industry globally. I believe that if captives take responsibility for putting the principles into practice it lifts the standard of the entire industry and makes regulators’ jobs easier.”

CICA describes itself as the only domicile-neutral captive insurance association, without jurisdictional or commercial ties and not linked with a domicile or government entity. CICA is headquartered in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and its members are domiciled throughout the world, with the highest number in Vermont, Hawaii, Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and the British Virgin Islands. It provides education, networking and leadership for captive and risk retention group professionals.

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