MATTHEW QUEEN
Chief risk officer, chief executive, attorney at law, author, The Queen Firm, Goldner Capital Management, Sherbrooke Corporate
“One of the biggest opportunities for captives is to provide a roadmap for new insurtech startups.”
Matthew Queen graduated from law school during the Great Recession of 2008/9 and, as he put it, “needed to find work”. KPMG was hiring so Queen started his career in Los Angeles in the state and local tax unit. It was there that he first saw how captives affected the overall financial picture of a company.
A few years later he returned home to Georgia and became involved in litigation. Most of his cases consisted of wrongful death claims filed against Georgia and Florida businesses. He was recruited out of insurance defence to serve as general counsel for a captive insurance manager where the owners were happy to teach the mechanics of captive insurance to someone with a basic understanding of tax law, insurance claims, and how claims departments function.
Today Queen runs a single parent captive on behalf of a private equity group specialising in nursing home turnarounds. The captive’s strength rests in its focus on risk management, with an emphasis on improving healthcare administration. In addition, he operates a law firm providing insurance consultation and guidance for small programmes and businesses seeking an evaluation of their captive insurance options.
Queen was described as a creative and passionate operator within the captive insurance industry. He has written books, teaches in every conversation, and is coming up with new ways to leverage captives for various risk management problems.
Here he goes into more detail on why captives attract the best operators around, what makes it a fantastic area to work in and his plans for the future.
Do you feel that the captive insurance industry is a rewarding sector to work in?
Captive insurance is inherently entrepreneurial and attracts the best operators in every industry who want to bet on themselves. This creates dynamic, exciting programmes trying to manage risk in innovative methods. Captive insurance mandates a broad knowledge consisting of underwriting, claims, actuarial science, and insurance accounting. This high hurdle results in the captives industry consisting of some of the brightest minds in risk financing. As a result, the captive insurance community is the most creative area in insurance.
Would you recommend the captive insurance industry to young people as a future career path?
Yes, captive insurance is a fantastic area of commercial insurance. It offers two benefits. First, the demands of captive insurance mandate an intimate knowledge of how commercial insurance operates and exposure to the mechanics of commercial insurance within a traditional carrier or brokerage takes years.
Second, it focuses more on practical risk management than commercial insurance, since the company’s money is at stake. This opens the door to learning how individual industries operate at a granular level. In tandem, these two benefits present a magnificent opportunity for a young professional to cultivate a valuable skillset in a relatively short period of time.
How do you feel that the captive insurance industry will evolve?
We are in the age of risk retention. The current hard market needs solutions and captives offer a meaningful resolution to the market’s shortcomings. The next soft market will not yield the same unreasonably low premiums as seen post-Great Recession through the COVID-19 pandemic since the return on equity for reinsurers has been depressed since 2017. Consequently, captive insurance is a material part of any risk financing conversation and will grow to accommodate the needs of more companies than ever before.
Also, one of the biggest opportunities for captives is to provide a roadmap for new insurtech startups. Leveraging a captive insurance programme with a verifiable history of losses provides credibility for nascent programmes seeking fronting and reinsurance. The first wave of insurtech overlooked the most important part of insurance—risk—and burned up when interest rates increased. Investor interest in insurtech remains but the markets want to see credible results before investing. Captive insurance programmes provide the solution that MGAs and MGUs need to overcome institutional scepticism.
Do you think that your long-term future remains in the captive insurance industry?
The captives community is a tightly knit, warm community consisting of the best minds in commercial insurance. My future is tied to the world of captive insurance and I hope to honour it by publishing scholarship in this area, growing the total number of captives, and advocating for better captive insurance law at the state and federal levels.
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