Captive Manager of the Year—Highly Commended
Arsenal Insurance
“We encourage and provide our staff with opportunities to build and improve knowledge and technical skills.”
What is your unique selling point for clients?
Arsenal is a nationally recognised leader in the captive insurance industry due to our breadth of resources, broad range in coverage and design capabilities, and geographical footprint. Our core foundation is built on trust and creating and fostering relationships with our clients, regulators, and other industry service providers to ensure that we provide the most effective and efficient risk management plan to best fit our clients’ needs.
In addition, we provide full-service management to our clients’ captive insurance companies to ensure regulatory compliance and appropriate loss control measures. We strive to provide a fully bundled “turnkey” management capability to help our clients overcome the challenges of traditional insurance and risk management nd take control of their company’s risks.
What additional changes would you like to see industry adopt?
One of the main issues we have seen within the industry is the absence of a guaranty fund mechanism for risk retention groups. We would like to see the industry advocate for the protection of those policyholders by way of implementing a form of guaranty mechanism and a plan of action to address the risks of participating in a risk retention group.
Regulation has evolved a lot over the years. What changes have you implemented to maintain compliance?
Arsenal has seen first-hand the evolution of regulatory changes within the captives industry over the last 15 years in response to the need for clarity regarding rules and regulations, uniform reporting, technological advances, and innovation. To ensure our clients are in compliance with regulatory governance, we maintain contact with state examiners and officials to stay abreast of regulatory changes.
We review and monitor various policies and procedures to assess any required or suggested changes. To ensure our company maintains a competitive edge, we encourage and provide our staff with opportunities to build and improve knowledge and technical skills by way of obtaining various insurance designations specific to their roles and duties and participate in continuing education courses, internally and externally
How have you changed and adapted to the ‘new normal’ of working in recent months?
Arsenal has been fortunate to provide our staff with the flexibility to telecommute, independent of COVID-19. Therefore, we did not see a significant impact on our business operations.
Although travel was restricted, we were able to increase contact with our clients via phone and teleconferencing to stay abreast of any changes as well as assess potential risks and impacts.
How does a captive manager balance the desire to grow with the need to provide personalised services to clients?
As a captive insurance manager, it is important to provide a customised customer service experience for every client, as the needs to be met will be different for all. Coupled with the desire to grow professionally, it can work very well.
There are valuable professional skills that can be developed and used as a captive manager with regard to ethics, improved communication skills and professional competence. These skills also foster a sense of trust, which essential in this industry.
