The Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) are looking to expand the numbers of young risk management students that attend their annual conference over the next few years, according to VCIA president Rich Smith.
Strategic Risk Solutions sent a number of students from across the country to this year’s conference, allowing them to attend educational sessions and network with members of the industry.
Speaking at the VCIA 2018 Annual Conference, Smith explained that the association are hoping more companies will follow suit in the future.
He said: “SRS brought five or six students from risk management programmes from across the country to the conference this year and that is something we are looking to expand over the next few years.”
“We are hoping to get other captive managers involved in hosting students at future conferences.”
“We are hoping that these young people will be ambassadors for the industry and go back to their programmes to make more people aware of the captive industry.”
Smith said that despite the lack of a risk management programme in Vermont, local service providers do a good of working with local colleges and recruiting new people to the industry.
He added: “We don’t have a risk management programme in Vermont but it’s interesting that we are seeing a growth nationally in terms of interest and in number of students.
“That growth is good news because young people aren’t seeing it as a boring job in the insurance world anymore.”
Sandi Prescott, head of client service at Performa, said developing young captive professionals was an important area of focus for the conference.
“Getting younger people involved in the industry and being able to provide the educational sessions is important to us.”
“Another important factor was encouraging local businesses who attend the conference to send their younger generation as well as the senior employees, so they have the opportunity to network with some of the more experienced individuals in the industry.”
“There is a lot of resources in the state of Vermont and we felt it was important to make that a particular area of focus at this year’s conference to get more of the younger generation involved and to provide them with more education.”