NICK BLYTH

Nick Blyth is senior vice president, leading the Innovative Captive Strategies (ICS) property casualty sales team. He is also a member of the ICS Executive Team, focusing on the strategic growth of the company and fellow team members.

Blyth began his career as an intern at Holmes Murphy & Associates (HMA) in 2005 and was soon after hired full-time in the Holmes Murphy property casualty division. In 2008, he pivoted and joined ICS, a subsidiary of Holmes Murphy dedicated to captive consulting and management services.

For his first several years at ICS, he performed roles in both sales and programme management. This hybrid role provided him with the opportunity to spend a significant amount of time learning, focusing, and growing in almost all areas of the captives business, including finance and risk management, which to this day, has played a critical role in enhancing his expertise in leading member-owned group captives and other captive structures in the industry. He also serves as a liaison between ICS’s captive owner clients and professional partners involved in the captive.

Here Blyth explains why ICS’s clients continue to build on their successes thanks to the company, why captives can be on the cutting edge of the evolution of the industry and what the captives industry offers new recruits.

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

Yes! The captive insurance industry is a special sector of an important industry of the global economy. The ICS tagline of “Do Business Boldly” and our motto of “Better is Better” define the type of clients we serve. We ask our clients to look in the mirror and bet on themselves while building a captive model that is reserved for the best of the best.

As a result, we have the pleasure of working with the best companies in a vast array of industries across the US. After 15 years, I’m amazed that our clients, who were best in class prior to joining one of our captives, continue to raise the bar and their results continue to improve. It’s a rewarding career being associated with these types of businessowners and that translates to working with best-in-class broker partners.

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

The captive industry is a tremendous opportunity to carve a niche in an industry that continues to innovate and grow. An expert in captive insurance will always be in high demand. With what I have experienced in my 15 years of captive insurance, I would recommend the industry and, specifically, ICS if you want to have a rewarding and fulfilling career.

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

The insurance industry is, in general, slow to evolve. As data and analytics are improving every day, and the economy and Mother Nature continue to cycle and cause disruption in the traditional marketplace, the captive industry will play a key role in meeting risk management needs across the globe. Because of the tail winds in the captives industry, I expect captives to be on the cutting edge of new, innovative solutions, setting the pace for the traditional market to play catch-up. The alignment and mutual interests among the many stakeholders in our industry simply makes too much sense.

New reinsurance companies are coming around to enter the captives space after years of “resisting” and protecting their traditional core business. As a result, we’re seeing new industry niches that are scalable for continued growth. Even the well-established group captive model continues to evolve with so much competition in the marketplace driving innovation.

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

Definitely. I am blessed with the opportunity to be an owner in such an amazing, privately-owned company that feels like a family. Being surrounded by so much talent in ICS, I am consistently growing in my own career while helping lead a company which wants to create opportunities for the next generation. This challenges us all to innovate and deliver the best captive outcomes and client experience.