SCOTTSDALE, ARIZ. ─ March 11, 2024 ─ At its annual International Conference today the Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) honored Robert H. “Skip” Myers, Jr., senior counsel, Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, with the CICA 2024 Distinguished Service Award and Woodward Straits Insurance Company (WSIC) with the CICA 2024 Outstanding Captive Award.

The CICA Distinguished Service Award is presented annually, when appropriate, to a single individual or entity that has made a significant contribution to the captive insurance industry.

Robert H. “Skip” Myers, senior counsel at Morris, Manning & Martin, LLP, is one of the top voices of captive insurance and regulatory law. He has written, spoken, and presented testimony before legislative bodies on various issues including antitrust regulation, financial services reform, the utilization of interstate compacts, the Liability Risk Retention Act, and the Terrorism Risk Insurance Act. His articles have appeared in numerous risk and insurance magazines. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and teaches courses for the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE).

Myers became interested in captive insurance during the 1980s while working on corporate insurance and regulatory matters. He was intrigued and saw captives as a “new challenge.” The growing captive industry brought more corporate, tax and operational issues, which further fueled his interest.

Myers has generously given his time serving on industry boards, including the CICA Board of Directors and the boards of the National Risk Retention Association and the ICCIE.

Upon receiving the award Myers said “It is a great honor! This puts me among those who have worked hard to improve the captive industry.”

The CICA Outstanding Captive Award is presented to a captive insurance company or risk retention group that has shown creative uses for a captive, been successful in managing the captive in terms of net results and usefulness to its owners, has prevailed over difficult times or situations and has gained acceptance, recognition, and a positive reputation among rating agencies, regulators and colleagues in the captive industry.

Flexibility and adaptability are often viewed as the top benefits of captive insurance and that has been the case for Woodward Straits Insurance Company (WSIC), a single-parent captive domiciled in Michigan. “The captive increases our flexibility when there is a need for new or unique insurance and reinsurance across the enterprise. For example, we have written, but have not had to utilize, $5 to $10 million layers across our most important programs in the event the traditional market is not competitive regarding pricing or terms,” says Fred Driscoll, who is responsible for WSIC’s daily operations.

A recent example relates to coverage of expenses for keeping physical locations with employees on-site protected during COVID. WSIC used a broadly written policy that enabled the organization to secure reimbursement for part of its cleaning and sanitizing costs through a sub-limit in the policy, placing WSIC in a pool of less than 1% of the broker’s clients that saw reimbursement for similar costs.

Along with WSIC’s captive success, Driscoll said he was “encouraged by our management to talk with other health insurers (and other industries) about how and why we have been so successful with our captive. For other health insurers, we talked to several, and many have implemented, or will be implementing, the use of a captive in some form to assist with the strategic utilization consistent with their plan’s needs.”

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