From: Captive Review
Captive Review’s 2025 Outstanding Contribution Award winner Mike Zuckerman calls for earlier engagement with young professionals while reflecting on his decades-long career
Mike Zuckerman is clear about the next big challenge for the captive insurance industry: making sure new talent finds the sector sooner rather than later.
Zuckerman, who has just this year retired from full-time teaching after 13 years as an associate professor at Temple University and is now Professor Emeritus, was last night honoured at the Captive Review US Awards with the Outstanding Contribution Award.
During two spells at Temple University Zuckerman has taught risk management and captive insurance to many individuals that have gone on to work in the captive sector. But even as he steps back from being an educator, he told Captive Review his hope was to “continue contributing to developing the next generation in any way that I can.”
“The captive insurance industry specifically needs to do a better job of getting into this big pipeline, and getting them to come into the captive insurance industry early on in their careers,” he says. “I think people have a tendency to find captive insurance later on, which is good, but if we want to continue to grow the industry, we have to develop talent from the grassroots, from the very beginning of their career.”
He points to the work of others pushing in the same direction, particularly CICA and the VCIA through their initiatives to bring on the next generation. But he wants the industry to go further.
