S.C. Loses Captive Regulator Matthews To Montana
By Caroline McDonald
NU Online News Service, Feb. 18, 12:42 p.m. EST?Steve Matthews, manager for compliance for captive insurers for the South Carolina Department of Insurance, has accepted the position of chief examiner for the captive domicile of Montana, a South Carolina official said yesterday.[@@]
"This is a great loss for the South Carolina captive insurance program, but is a new opportunity for Steve," Clayton Ingram, the South Carolina insurance department's manager of business development, alternative risk transfer services, said in an e-mail.
Mr. Ingram said he had "not conveyed this news before, hoping against hope that he would change his mind. He has not and his last day at the S.C. DOI will be Friday, Feb. 25."
When Mr. Matthews was initially hired by the department five years ago, "I saw in him someone who was resourceful, cooperative and dedicated to advancing the new program even though it was not in his area of responsibility," Mr. Ingram said. "He took the initiative to learn enough about the program to be a reliable resource and, even before transferring to the ARTS [alternative risk transfers] team, was working with me to review applications and understand how to apply the new rules these companies would use."
Mr. Matthews, he continued, is the department's only analyst, in charge of reviewing annual reports for 108 active captive insurers as well as quarterly reports for 48 risk retention groups.
In addition, Mr. Ingram said, "He fields dozens of questions daily, from managers, banks and investment advisors, regarding compliance with our financial standards, and from other state regulators?not to mention the dozens of question I ask every day."
In five years South Carolina has grown from a program "that was given no chance of success to one that is now among the most prolific in the world and the envy of other domiciles," Mr. Ingram said. This type of success "does not happen by accident," he noted. "It takes a concerted effort by dedicated public servants. The results are jobs, revenue and a new industry from which the state will be reaping rewards long after we are gone and forgotten."
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