EDWARD WUNDERER

Edward Wunderer first heard of the captive insurance concept from a colleague while studying finance at Towson University. At the time he had interests in the investment world, tax planning, insurance, risk management and overall entrepreneurship. He thought the captive industry would give him exposure to all his interests at once.

In the winter of 2014, Wunderer was searching for a summer internship and ultimately landed with Oxford Risk Management Group. As it is a small and rapidly growing organisation, this gave him the rare opportunity to learn from a tight-knit group of employees and have client-facing experiences that most young professionals are not usually afforded. Once the summer was over, Oxford asked him to stay onboard and continue helping the company grow.

Wunderer graduated from Towson a year later and hit the ground running, learning everything he could about captives. He spent time learning all aspects of the insurance business from programme design, structuring policies, underwriting, implementation, closings, business plans, claims handling, and group captive meetings, as well as presentations to new and existing clients.

In 2017, he took his knowledge and started building captive programmes for the relationships he had cultivated. Wunderer focused on enterprise risk captive structures that helped privately held business owners cover their unique high severity low frequency exposures. He then expanded to build excess and umbrella captive programmes for traditional lines of insurance.

Fast-forward to 2023 and he is now acting as a risk management consultant at Oxford working with clients on their enterprise risks, commercial umbrella and excess needs as well as traditional primary captive programmes for almost all lines of coverage. To date, he has helped design, structure and set up over 200 captive insurance programmes.

Wunderer was described as on track to become a leader in the captive insurance space because he has extensive experience for his age. He helped his peers during the COVID-19 pandemic by forming a study group to help grow the knowledge base and work together to navigate the market challenges, taking the approach that “we are better together”.

Here he shares why he thinks that the captive insurance space is getting stronger, why he recommends it to those entering the marketplace and how he feels the industry will stay relevant in the future.

Do you feel that the captive insurance industry is a rewarding sector to work in?

It is an extremely rewarding sector to work in. It truly allows business owners to take control of their insurance programmes while also being rewarded for their good performance. The captive insurance space is only getting stronger as insurance coverage becomes more expensive and harder to place.

Businesses are more willing to seek alternative risk financing as they see an increase in their insurance rates. Educated clients that are investing in their safety, risk management and overall growth of their company see the true value in forming a captive insurance company.

The captive insurance industry is special because it can tie into all aspects of a business planning from insurance, investing, tax, claims handling, wealth transfer, etc. For many of my clients, it’s attractive to control their own destiny, and captive owners will often utilise their profits by putting it right back into the business. I enjoy seeing clients maximise the capabilities of the insurance programme and it’s very rewarding to play a small role in that.

Would you recommend the captive insurance industry to young people as a future career path?

I certainly would recommend the captive insurance industry to young people. Captive insurance gives young professionals exposure to the nuances of business that they may not otherwise see. If an individual comes into the captives industry with an open mind and with the right organisation, they can certainly find their path forward.

Captive insurance organisations provide the opportunity to learn about a variety of industry sectors and work alongside the businesses leadership team to solve a challenge. Captives are intertwined with all aspects of a business, so you get to see how the company truly functions. There are so many ways you can participate in the captives space from consulting, claims handling, underwriting, implementation, and account management, to investing and tax preparation—the list goes on. In my opinion the captives industry allows you to explore many routes and determine what is the best fit for you.

How do you feel that the captive insurance industry will evolve?

Captives will continue to be relevant because most large businesses are using some form of alternative risk financing in their overall business strategy and there are many reasons for that. Captives are nimble and can pivot as a company evolves and captive owners appreciate that flexibility.

I believe insurance brokerages will partner with captive managers to form their own captive structures to combat the insurance market’s volatility and provide their clients with other solutions than traditional guaranteed cost markets. More so than ever before, clients are bringing captives up to their brokers as they see competitors or people in their industry forming their own captives.

The captives industry is always evolving and I do not see that stopping. Captives are a fantastic way to soften the waves of the insurance market and get some level of predictability for long-term planning.

Captives are still a relatively new concept even though they have been around since the early 19th century. The next step is becoming more mainstream, and I think that process has just begun.

Do you think that your long-term future remains in the captive insurance industry?

Yes. I genuinely enjoy learning about the companies I work with and it’s exciting to play an outside role in their company. I like helping clients create a unique captive solution that solves an insurance or business obstacle. In many cases, this problem was not able to be solved otherwise and in some situations the business could not function without the captive. The captive insurance space never gets boring and is always intellectually stimulating.

The captive insurance industry is only going to grow in the coming years, especially with the current hard insurance market, increase in cost of capital and lack of capacity in the traditional insurance markets. Clients that may not know about captives will soon be introduced to the concept in one way or another.

The word is spreading that captives are not just for big businesses and that there are solutions out there for the small to mid-sized markets as well. Insurance professionals are becoming more sophisticated and recognising that if they don’t bring the captive solution to their clients, someone else will.