MELINDA PONTOS

Melinda Pontos has been working in the financial sector for the last 17 years, most of which has been spent in the re/insurance industry. Working across several functions in operations, pricing and client management enabled her to understand the workings of the reinsurance industry and employee benefits (EB) solutions from multiple angles, which in turn has been invaluable in helping her provide high quality services to her clients.

In 2021, she joined Zurich Global Employee Benefits Solutions (ZGEBS) as a senior captive underwriter and has recently been promoted to captive underwriting lead with the goal to strengthen its customer value proposition. Together with a much wider team of captive insurance specialists within the Zurich organisation, she is supporting captive customers from the very beginning of their EB captive journey and providing local contract design and pricing guidance to help them achieve their objectives.

How did you become involved in captive insurance?

Prior to joining ZGEBS, in my role as head of group income protection UK and Ireland, I was working with customers who had their own EB captive program set up. I became aware of the wider benefits to companies of using such vehicles for financing and risk management, and it convinced me to pursue an underwriting opportunity at Zurich, which was specialising in providing global solutions.

What are the biggest challenges of working in this industry and what do you find most rewarding?

The captive industry is a high pace environment and there is an increasing demand from multinational companies to help them set up their EB captive arrangements and to provide the data required to support the programme. We now have partners in almost 150 locations, and while this brings great possibilities to expand, it adds a high degree of complexity to our business from a governance perspective and also when it comes to onboarding and reporting the local EB contracts themselves.

Although it has its challenges, it is always rewarding to work with customers during the implementation phase and then continue to improve and develop the quality of the data and services as the programme matures.

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

Our industry is very fast-moving, international and still relatively young. Working with captives gives you insights into several different areas of business, including HR, legal, risk management and treasury functions, and the variety of different subjects one might be involved with and the breadth of local insurance practices worldwide mean there is always something new to learn.

An added advantage of working for a company like Zurich is that the skills we develop in the EB world are transferable to our P&C side as well, allowing great development possibilities for young people looking for long-term careers in the financial industry who do not want to move employer. Zurich recognises and actively encourages such development in the workforce.

What developments do you see ahead for captives?

We have noticed that whereas EB captives used more to be the domain of larger multinational firms, there is now increasing demand in the mid-size company sector as well. These companies recognise that using a captive EB programme not only helps them optimise their financing efficiency but can also help drive improvements in the quality and breadth of cover they are able to offer to their global workforce.

This has been particularly noticeable in the last couple of years as companies have been looking to incorporate wider diversity and inclusion initiatives into their local benefit designs which would otherwise be challenging without captive support. We expect demand for these types of initiatives to continue to evolve as companies look to introduce consistent, harmonised benefits across the globe.

Do you think your long-term future remains in the captives market?

Definitely. The demands are high, but I enjoy my work and the interactions I have with customers and business partners, and it is an industry where there is still so much potential to unlock in the future.