The World Captive Forum annually brings together risk and captive managers, regulators from various US domestic and international domiciles, consultants and brokers as well as representatives from across the global insurance industry. This year’s event took place at the beautiful Turnberry Isle Miami resort in Aventura, Florida, from January 28 to 30, marking the 22nd anniversary of the event.
The conference centres around property and casualty as well as benefit “tracks” with introductory and advanced sessions covering a range of captive-related topics from risk financing to tax and regulatory issues. The venue is ideal for industry professionals to learn about this internationally growing sector, exchange ideas, share experiences and develop working relationships.
As one of the traditional co-sponsors of the forum, GEB representatives participated in some of the employee benefit conference sessions moderated by consultants from Towers Watson’s international benefits practice.
Marco Giacomelli, GEB’s chief operating officer, was a co-speaker in the session titled “Understanding Benefits Basics.” During the session, representatives from GM, Caterpillar, Marsh Management Services and Prudential Financial shared their practical experiences on how to foster cooperation and collaboration between HR and finance management, building a strong business case for the inclusion of employee benefit plans in captives.
Eric Butler, GEB’s Brussels-based medical director, served as a panellist to the session on “Global Medical Trends and Benefits Captives.” This session focused on how companies such as Coca-Cola and DHL partner with benefit networks to manage the rising medical costs of their international programs via data collection, utilization pattern and claim-trend analysis.
Marc Reinhardt, GEB’s director for the Americas located in Parsippany, New Jersey, participated in a panel discussion with the captive managers from ADM, Coca Cola and 3M as well as other benefit network representatives on challenges that arise with country regulations and practices in different markets (e.g. Argentina, Brazil, China and India) when reinsuring international benefit programs to a captive.
A highlight of the event, Coca-Cola’s director of risk management Laurie Solomon and Stacy Aptar, director of global benefits financing and asset management, received this year’s Award of Excellence. With this award, the World Captive Forum recognizes the parent company of a single-owner captive for thought leadership and extraordinary contributions in the field of risk and captive management. Last year’s award went to Mike Lusk of ADM. GEB is honoured to be a partner of both companies for their innovative and in many ways trail-blazing captive programs.
As usual, the event was impeccably organized, well attended and very informative. GEB looks forward to being part of the 2014 World Captive Forum.