ICCIE
Celebrating 15 years of the ICCIE programme, Mitch Cantor talks about how it helps captive professionals deepen their knowledge and what the future of captive insurance looks like
What is the aim of ICCIE?
ICCIE is the official education program of the captive insurance industry. It is a 501c3 that was created by the industry.
As such, ICCIE’s sole mission is to create and offer online courses for the captive industry and to provide the industry’s professional designation, the ACI: Associate in Captive Insurance, and the more recently-developed CCI: Certificate in Captive Insurance (a step-designation which requires about half the number of courses as the ACI).
Recognising the above, ICCIE’s goal is to maintain high-quality educational opportunities for captive professionals at an affordable cost. This being the case, we get extensive feedback from board and committee members on course and webinar topics. Fortunately, we have a terrific group of subject matter advisors and experts who give us lots of feedback and help us develop the sessions and materials we need.
If there are any holes in our curriculum, we need to know about it, so I would encourage all captive professionals to visit our website (www.iccie.org) and examine our course offerings. We would love to hear from people about any ideas they have that might help us better serve the captive industry.
Similarly, if there are subject matter experts who wish to contribute to ICCIE with their expertise, we are always looking to expand the breadth of our faculty. Because we offer both ongoing courses and ‘hot topic’ webinars, there is room for a great number of voices among our captive experts.
Of course, it is also a goal of ours to find knowledgeable captive expertise among many domiciles, both domestic and international.
Those interested in teaching can contact me directly at mcantor@iccie.org. All instructors are vetted through our curriculum committee, which meets and makes such determinations on a regular basis.
Are you finding there’s a growing interest in captive insurance from the younger generation?
It’s honestly hard to say from where we sit. Since we primarily cater to full-time working professionals, people usually come to us after they’ve already been introduced to the captive world.
That being said, we are trying to work our curriculum into several college and university risk management programs. While this is a slow process, we have seen some interest from programme managers, so that signals an uptick in interest in providing education for a younger crowd.
Certainly, there is a much greater understanding and awareness of the captive world among risk management professionals, and that mostly likely will work its way down to the lower ranks where new people are coming into the RM industry. From that perspective, new people entering the risk management field can’t help but be more exposed to captive insurance as an option.
The real test will be in the next few years as so many risk management professionals retire. It will be interesting to see if the great numbers of vacancies in the field will spur new and more innovative ways of attracting new captive professionals. For our part, we are constantly asking the younger people in our programmes and courses, what we can do to make the programme more attractive and accessible to people just entering the workforce.
How long have the ICCIE’s scholarships been running? Are there any conclusions to be drawn about the state of talent in the industry?
ICCIE scholarships have been in place since our launch in 2004. We always have applicants, and that’s a good sign that education and a high level of professional competency is valued in the industry.
At the same time, we would love to host many more scholarships and see all of our opportunities draw much more attention than they typically do. We have been looking at many different kinds of scholarship opportunities and ways we can partner with both domicile organisations, captive owners and service providers as scholarship sponsors. But everyone is so busy servicing the current needs of the industry it sometimes makes it difficult to get peoples’ attention to look at future opportunities to grow the industry.
Looking on the bright side, however, I think it’s fair to say that every one of our scholarship recipients, upon enrolling in our courses, has recognised the great value in what we have to offer. I have to believe that the cumulative goodwill provided by that perception of value will, eventually, lead to many more people enrolling in ICCIE and many more people looking at scholarship opportunities (and, I hope, more scholarship opportunities created, as well).
Check back in ten years, and I’ll let you know the answer.
How do you view the future of captive insurance and what can be done to ensure talented people are moving into the captive industry?
The future of the captive industry is very bright, from all the indications I can see. Everyone is working at top capacity, and there continues to be more and more captive formations. There will be a little cannibalisation as some of the newer domiciles reclaim the occasional captive with a home-based parent. But it seems that the idea that “captives are another tool in the risk management toolbox” is clearly here to stay.
As to the second part of the question, that’s trickier. The captive industry has the same challenge that the rest of the financial services sector faces: massive retirements in the next few years.
Fortunately, through a number of industry initiatives, captives are becoming a bit more visible in the insurance world, and, hopefully, as more people see the captive industry and the opportunities it affords, the more successful it will be in attracting new entrants into the field.
At the same time, those in the industries that serve captives are already looking to adjust their modes of operation to accommodate millennials (more flexible working conditions, schedules and more). Like all business segments, the captive and risk management industries need to cater to the new world instead of the old. But I’m both hopeful and confident that the captive world will meet the challenge.
