The previous blog post I wrote for this Connecticut Captive
Insurance Association (CCIA) site was related to the innovative use of a
captive to fund the crisis of crumbling foundations that has hit homeowners in
portions of eastern Connecticut. This is a complex, difficult issue and
progress continues to be made, led by one of our CCIA members, Michael Maglaras
& Company. Connecticut is also pushing forward to form a captive to help stabilize
special education costs for towns and municipalities across the state. This is
another very difficult issue that Connecticut has decided to tackle head-on
with a revolutionary approach.
So why would you be surprised to hear about CCIA’s revolutionary
upcoming annual event, the Cap-a-thon? It is a dynamic, “design sprint”
approach to learning more about why and how the fastest-growing risk in our
business, cyber insurance, is being placed into captives. The structure is a
“hack” on a hackathon, which is a concept born out of the tech world, and will
provide a condensed amount of time for collaborative, team-based work.
With the standard captive insurance conference competently
covered by other domiciles, CCIA tries to continually reengineer and
reinvigorate its annual event. This year, we are capitalizing on the innovative
hackathon concept with our Cap-a-thon event. By encouraging intense
collaboration and teamwork, focused on particular industries, we aim to help attendees
uncover new captive solutions that open the door to further business
opportunities and relationships. We believe that captive insurance owners, risk
managers from companies considering the formation of captive entities, and
emerging start-up companies will all benefit from the sharing of innovative
solutions to emerging cyber risk issues. In addition to having access to a few cyber
expert panelists who will set the stage for approaches to understanding,
managing, and quantifying cyber risk, team members will be offered access to
live cyber industry data under the direction of a cyber subject matter expert.
The genesis of this idea came from John Thomson, who is
currently serving as CCIA’s Executive Director. John, CCIA board member Dawne
Ware of Ware Consulting LLC, and I have been actively involved with the many
(and I mean many) ongoing events
happening in the Hartford insurance innovation “ecosystem.” Much of this activity
originated from collaboration between state and local leadership and private
company support. CTNext, a quasi-public entity, was created to support the growth
and success of companies and entrepreneurs by providing guidance, resources,
and networks. CTNext and three prominent Connecticut insurers joined forces
with Startupbootcamp to launch the United States’ first accelerator for
insurance technology, in Hartford. The accelerator, part of what’s called
Hartford InsurTech Hub, also receives matching grants from insurers and others.
The goal is to bring innovation to the insurance industry in Hartford and to foster
new insurtech companies and growth in local jobs. In addition to the deliberate
efforts in insurtech, CTNext has partnered with others in the community to
gather large, Hartford-based innovation partners in other industries such as digital
health and additive manufacturing. Over the course of the next year, you can
expect to see accelerator programs supporting these industries, as well as insurtech,
kicking off in downtown Hartford.
CCIA is proud to participate in this ecosystem. Earlier this
year, John and I took part in a panel regarding captives and insurtech that was
hosted by Upward Hartford. The audience became much more familiar with the
benefits of captives and their future uses in the insurtech age. Captives are
proven commercial risk-financing vehicles that allow companies to better manage
their risks. We and others in the captive industry believe that insurtech and
other innovations will have as big an impact on captives as they do traditional
commercial insurance. On October 16/17, with Upward Hartford as our host, we will endeavor to create an exciting new learning environment for furthering growth in captive insurance in Connecticut. Register here!
We look forward to seeing you there!
We look forward to seeing you there!
Stephen R. DiCenso, President, CCIA
