The importance of education

Gary Osborne - president, USA Risk Group 25/06/2010

I was reminded of the importance of education for the captive insurance industry this week after making a presentation on behalf of the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE) in Grand Cayman. I have been a faculty member of ICCIE for almost five years and USA Risk Group has been a staunch proponent, being a small initial funding supporter but, probably more importantly, encouraging our staff to pursue the ACI designation, as well as providing our time and efforts as faculty and board members.

The success of ICCIE, with almost 600 participants in either the full or partial program, is clear; but, in looking to ensure its ongoing future, the difficulty of having one program work for the many different jurisdictions also comes into focus. The Insurance Managers Association of Cayman (IMAC) education committee had an initial session where, with predominantly office heads, I discussed the ICCIE program and why and how USA Risk Group has supported and benefited from being so heavily engaged in the ACI designation.

I highlighted the risk and insurance aspects of the ICCIE program, especially in light of the vast majority of our employees coming from an accounting background and noted that almost all our ACI students had indicated that it was a worthwhile investment of their time and had improved their understanding of the risk process.

I know from interacting with many of our account managers that they have a good understanding of the numbers in a captive program, but they have never been exposed to the risk management side of the equation which reviews multiple options to manage risk and that a captive is only one of many options open. The ICCIE program walks students down the path of the various options and hopefully allows the account manager to grasp the important factors that led to the captive being ultimately chosen as the best option.

The biggest concern from Cayman (and I would think Bermuda would have similar concerns) was the rollover employment laws in their jurisdiction that mean staff are likely limited to a maximum of seven years.  With the average ACI recipient taking 20 to 24 months to achieve the designation, the employers were concerned about how much value they would get out of investing in their staff for this program. There was also the concern expressed that some students felt that the course was narrowly focused on captives and that it would be of little value to them if they left the captive industry.

I can only give the same response I gave to the IMAC members, we at USA Risk Group believe it benefits not only our staff to continue their professional education (and we never know the length of time an employee will stay in any of our locations), but is a plus to our clients to have account managers working on the captives that have a broader understanding of the risk process and can provide better guidance to their clients beyond number crunching.

ICCIE has been a boon to the captive community and it still has great potential to do even more. The second part of the IMAC meeting was a demonstration lecture to potential students. Over 90 people attended which I hope demonstrates a couple of things:  1) the commitment of the people that work in this industry to better themselves and; 2) the growing recognition that an ACI designation is a meaningful qualification for people in our industry. USA Risk, for one, will continue to encourage our staff to grow using the ICICE program and achieve the ACI designation.