A recent report from AM Best concluded that, based on their ratings, captive insurance companies outperformed commercial market carriers yet again in 2017. This finding was based on a hard look at balance sheet strength, operating performance, and business profiles of captives as compared to their commercial counterparts.

As long-time captive consultants, we’ve seen a range of clients benefit from a captive structure and are well-versed in their advantages. The AM Best report is a testimony to the positive role captives can play and how they’re able to provide a competitive edge to the organizations using them. Some of the key advantages include:

1) Homogeneous Risks

Whether a Single Parent Captive or a Risk Retention Group (RRG), the insureds of a captive are going to have similar risk profiles and diversity. A Single Parent Captive insures the parent company, so all its risks belong to one entity. RRGs are made up of like companies with similar missions and business products/services, such as a group of universities. In both cases, the homogeneity of risk will benefit the captive by establishing a certain level of predictability which helps with the consistency of rates and an unsurprising loss ratio.

2) Underwriting Profit/Results

According to AM Best, the Captive Insurance Composite (CIC)experienced a 86.4% five-year combined ratio, while the Commercial Casualty Composite (CCC) had a 99.9% five-year combined ratio. Captives enjoy such underwriting profits for a number of reasons, primarily the fact that risk management, control, prevention and mitigation are all at the heart of the captive’s purpose. Organizations are able to benefit from their own good experience. Captives facilitate transparency and more access to data. This allows organizations to act in a proactive manner and implement risk mitigation and control protocols in an almost real time basis. Comparatively, a fully insured commercial market policy may result in a delayed information transition – most commercial insurance arrangements provide reports a quarter after year-end. In addition, frictional costs are lowered with a captive.

3) Return on Investment

A major advantage that organizations with captives have over commercial carriers is the opportunity to recapture part of the premiums. Captives require capital infusion to start and get off the ground. The profits/savings from the insurance carrier accumulate in the captive and can, over time, begin to yield impressive returns on investment. Most feasibility studies use an internal rate of return or a hurdle rate to help visualize potential savings. This makes captives a great alternative for deploying capital and earning a consistently positive return on income, in addition to being able to use it strategically for reinsurance purposes.

Another pro of captives is the ability to evaluate their ROI evaluated against their hurdle rate as their internal rate of return. A company can determine if an investment will give them adequate benefit or savings over a given timeframe based on their rate of return, and then decide if that investment is worth following through with, or if another solution is more economically sound.

These factors combined allow captives a healthy sum of capital and positive balance sheets.

4) Competitiveness

Commercial carriers are sometimes unable to understand the true needs of the insureds and are limited in their offerings. Captives create competitiveness in the market and can compel commercial carriers to offer better terms and costs by virtue of a captive’s existence. In many instances, commercial carriers are threatened by the captive’s ability to take on all the risk and become willing to create quota share arrangements. Captives are a unique, tailored solution for the insured(s)and offer an unbeatable level of customization and very little changes in premiums. They have the ability to insure unique risks and are able to fill in the gaps of coverage where commercial markets are unable to do so.

5) Enterprise Risk Management

AM Best defines Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) as, “establishing a risk-aware culture and using tools to consistently identify and manage, as well as measure risk and risk correlations.” An organization that utilizes a captive is likely to have a stronger ERM system in place, when compared to its captiveless peers, since it is partaking in its own experience and thus is more motivated to better manage its risks. Inmost cases, the captive is a vital cog in the ERM wheel. This close alignment allows for better results for both parties, and a lower total cost of risk for the captive.

6) Retention

Many rated captives have a retention rate of 90% or higher. This is, in part, because policyholders are routinely rewarded through dividend payments from the captive that are significantly higher than any seen in the commercial market. These profits can be used in a multitude of ways to further benefit the captive. For example, policyholders could underwrite additional lines of coverage without the need for more capital, or provide premium holidays on programs, or fund FTEs.

This, combined with the lack of competition means that captives don’t need to shop around for business each year, creating savings in acquisition costs which can then be returned to the captive (e.g. in the form of loss control) to further benefit the insureds.

7) Ability to Identify Emerging Risks

A captive’s structure and foundation in ERM gives it an added advantage of foreseeing emerging risks. Typically, all key stakeholders and the entire risk team of an organization will be involved in the captive’s management and activity. Having a strong alignment between the parent company, the captive, the IT team, the risk experts, the actuaries and other main players means that everyone is on the same page. A captive can make long-term assessments while also flagging and resolving issues quickly. There is no fragmentation of knowledge in a captive setup, and all stakeholders have the same interests. In sum, captives allow organizations to be nimble and react to changing market conditions quicker than commercial market carriers.

Conclusion

As AM Best states, captives performed well in 2017, as did RRGs, and it’s projected that success will continue into 2018 and beyond. The US captive market has grown substantially over the past few years, with domiciles like North Carolina and Hawaii experiencing an uptick in captive formation. Further, we’re seeing captives being used more frequently for nontraditional lines of coverage, such as cyber and medical stop-loss, adding to the list of use cases.

Captives are a great tool for insureds to create unique, custom-made solution in partnership with the commercial markets. They facilitate better management of claims – their expenses and adjustments –through accurate estimations.

Lastly, one of a captive’s most important attributes is its flexibility and ability to be swift and proactive, without the typical issues in a commercial insurance relationship.

The term voluntary benefits was coined long ago when employers fully funded (or significantly subsidized) core benefits and voluntary benefits were an add-on, paid for by the employee through payroll deductions. As the landscape changed, core benefits evolved to be partially funded by employers and partially funded through payroll deductions. As a result, many benefits became voluntary.

For today’s employees, it’s not as simple as core and voluntary; it’s about choice. Employees need to balance what limited disposable income they have for all benefits, regardless of what they are labeled. Even still, the concept of core and voluntary resonates with employers as an industry norm, so it’s important to identify ways to avoid common pitfalls of voluntary program implementation:

  1. Think holistically
  2. Don’t forget about ERISA
  3. Consider enrollment options as a critical component in overall design
  4. Remember that education is key
  5. Help employees get the most from their plan

1) Holistically About Voluntary Benefits

Many employers think offering voluntary benefits is like checking a box – something that can be done quickly and without much deliberation. However, programs without thoughtful preparation are rarely successful in terms of education, enrollment and satisfaction. Voluntary benefits should be considered an integral part of the overall benefits package. A strong offering should take into account various factors, including but not limited to:

Current population:

Although a one-size-fits-all approach does not and should not exist, employee demographics can help you pinpoint which products would be most sensible for your collective audience. Generally speaking, those that are starting out in their careers have different priorities than those nearing retirement, and employees falling somewhere in the middle of the spectrum will have their own set of benefits needs as well. For example, accident insurance is more popular for families than for singles or empty nesters, while student loan repayment is more relevant for those in their 20’s and 30’s than for older employees.

Current benefit offering:

When considered in tandem, voluntary benefits can serve to protect employees and reduce their risk or perceived risk for various physical or financial troubles. For example, introducing a high deductible health plan offering complementary voluntary products (i.e. hospital indemnity, critical illness, accident insurance) can help decrease the financial burden on employees.

2) Don’t Forget About ERISA Considerations for Voluntary Benefits

Voluntary benefit programs may or may not be subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974(ERISA), depending on how they are structured and supported by the employer. ERISA provides important protections but can also pose constraints for employers and employees. Assuming you do not want your voluntary programs to be covered under ERISA, you must be careful to manage enrollment and administration separately from your core benefit programs. If you would like your voluntary plans to be subject to ERISA, then coordinating administration and enrollment will not be problematic; however, understand the potential impacts. ERISA compliance and your potential fiduciary duties should never be an afterthought.

3) Consider Enrollment Options as a Critical Component in Overall Design

Our research affirms that employees better understand the offering
and have higher enrollment when they participate in group meetings or individual meetings. In addition, vendor partners are often willing to offer more competitive pricing and waive enrollment requirements if they can meet with employees directly or send them some type of material in the mail.

While some employers welcome the “free” education and enrollment, others are concerned about aggressive selling or having employees using work hours to meet with potential vendors. If you think of voluntary benefits as part of your holistic offering, then leveraging work hours will be less of an apprehension when voluntary is an element of your complete attraction and retention tool.

The key is to think about the enrollment process as an essential design component of your voluntary program. Ensure that decisions surrounding enrollment fi t with the overall program strategy and make sense for your population. Providing comprehensive enrollment with core and voluntary may be a best practice for your group. This allows employees to make coordinated decisions regarding their contributions and programs. It also enables you to offer complementary plans for optimal plan selection. While that structure works for some, other employers feel employees have too many decisions to make during annual enrollment and prefer to stagger voluntary enrollment to allow more time for thoughtful decision making. There’s no right or wrong answer – each company and population is different.

4) Remember that Education is Important

Decision support tools have continued to evolve, providing employees with strong advocacy for traditional plans and voluntary benefits alike. Although voluntary benefits are designed to be less complex and easier to understand, for some employees the language is new. Summarizing the program(s) and sharing scenarios to help employees understand the products is often the best way to introduce a new plan.

Regardless of who funds the program, as the employer it is important that you educate your employees on the available offering. Employees should not elect a benefit they do not understand and employers should not offer benefits that are not valued by employees, or that employers themselves cannot explain effectively. Every dollar spent on voluntary benefits is money your employees are not spending on other necessities like monthly bills, student debt, groceries, emergency savings, or even401k contributions; make sure they are knowledgeable about what they are buying and ensure that it’s a competitive product in the market.

Education can be facilitated in many ways including traditional employee meetings, brochures, benefit fairs, and onsite sessions with vendors. At Spring we have also assisted clients with quick videos that provide the highlights of a program and generate interest. These videos have been well received and employees are able to retain the information from a creative video more easily than a detailed presentation. Videos are also shareable and can be viewed by family members who may be a critical part of the decision-making process.

5) Help Employees Make the Most of the Plan

After you have implemented a voluntary program and educated your membership it’s important that you continue to monitor the program and assist your employees in optimization. Sometimes employees forget about the benefits they have available to them and continue to make monthly contributions to plans but they neglect to fi le claims because they don’t remember what they have elected. A few simple actions can help your employees make the most of the plan:

Taking the above factors into account will help you establish a voluntary benefit offering that is accessible and relevant to your employees and that is well worth the effort on your part. Today’s workforce has come to expect more than just the basics when it comes to benefits, and voluntary products allow you to diversify your benefits package, keeping you competitive with market standards without any significant cost increase.

However, it is not enough merely to offer voluntary products and services – they need to be the right ones for your population, they need to be communicated effectively, they need to be readily understood, they need to account for regulations like ERISA, they need to be fully utilized and they need to be rolled out in a way that makes sense for your organization. By covering these bases you’ll be able to avoid the most common pitfalls and successfully offer a valued voluntary benefits programs.