Vt. Captives Having Banner Year

The hard market in general, and availability problems formedical practitioners in particular have led to a record half-yearin 2002 for the Vermont captive insurance market.

Vermont to date has licensed 28 captives, “a record first andsecond quarter,” said Leonard Crouse, director of captive insurancefor the Vermont Department of Banking, Insurance and Securities, inMontpelier.

Vermont also has eight applications “in-house that are pending,and we probably have four or five meetings set up in the next twoor three weeks,” for new captives, he said.

Mr. Crouse said that the trend now is toward the formation ofgroup captive programs “because of the market being so hard and theplight of the medical business, doctors and hospitals.”

Of the 28 captives licensed, five are risk retention groupcaptives and the rest are pure captives, he said.

Vermont closed 2001 with 38 new captives–37 pure captives set upby organizations, and one group or sponsored captive–for a total of527 at year-end, according to the department.

Companies forming new captives in the first half of 2002included Compass Bank, Electronic Data Systems, National Union FireInsurance Company of Pittsburgh (see related story) and PremeraBlue Cross.

“These are busy, busy times,” Mr. Crouse added.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Property &Casualty/Risk & Benefits Management Edition, July 29, 2002.Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serialpublication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as anindependent work may be held by the author.