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ICCIE is leaving its mark Core courses, electives, scholarships highlight three years of growth By Michael J. Moody, MBA, ARM Many three-year-olds aren’t quite up to running full speed, but not so for the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE). ICCIE, which will celebrate its third birthday at the Vermont Captive Insurance Association’s (VCIA) annual conference on August 7-9, hit the road running and has never looked back. It was originally established to address a problem within the captive insurance industry—not enough qualified employees to handle the rapidly growing demand. While captives have been a significant part of the international risk financing industry for more than 25 years, there has long been a shortage of experienced workers to support the industry’s significant growth. This nagging problem has only gotten worse as more and more states have passed enabling legislation for the formation of captives. Unfortunately, about the only method of resolving this issue was with time-consuming, on-the-job training. For the most part, this has proven sorely lacking for the increasing needs of the captive industry. Walk before you run Due in large part to the phenomenal growth of captives in the Green Mountain State, the VCIA was more painfully aware of this shortcoming than most other domiciles. As a result, VCIA began to research possible solutions to the problem more than six years ago. After much time and effort, the association determined that the best way to meet this challenge was to develop an educational program specific to the needs to the captive insurance industry. Over the first couple of years, many individuals provided significant time in establishing the early concepts and designs for the program so that VCIA was able to announce the beginning of the program at its 2005 Annual Conference. And one point was clear from the start: While the program was initially started by the VCIA, it was an international program. The VCIA leadership realized this issue was not unique to the Vermont market. And from the start, ICCIE has been actively marketed as an international educational program. First steps Two years ago, ICCIE was able to announce the first recipient of the Associate in Captive Insurance (ACI) designation—David “Lucky” Lippa. According to Mitch Cantor, executive director of ICCIE, there are now 20 ACI designees. Cantor also points out that there are currently more than 300 enrollees in the ICCIE program. He says that about half of the enrollees are working towards the ACI designation and about half are “modular” or course-by-course enrollees. According to Cantor, “There are quite a few of the students that are only one course away from the ACI.” Accordingly, Cantor believes that there will be a number of additional designees by year-end. ICCIE has retained most of the original program design, that being the five core courses and two electives. The core courses are 1) An Introduction to Alternative Risk Financing Mechanisms, 2) Understanding Risks and Risk Retention Mechanisms, 3) Protecting the Captive: Predicting Risks, Reinsurance and Other Transfer Mechanisms, 4) Forming and Operating a Captive, and 5) Business Ethics in the Captive Insurance Industry. The core courses are designed to provide a broad overview of the captive industry as well as captives’ operation. In addition to the five core courses, Cantor says each student is required to take two elective courses. To date, these elective courses have been provided by outside organizations, principally either the American Institute for CPCU or the Insurance Education Association. While these electives do offer a wide array of alternatives with regards to topics, Cantor notes, “there has been a major review of the electives area.” And, he says, “The biggest change is that ICCIE is now developing its own, in-house elective content for the first time.” Since the first of the year, two internally generated topics have been developed and presented. The first course is Risk Retention Groups, which was taught by Jon Harkavy and Stephanie Mapes and completely filled the first session. The second new elective is Understanding the Intricacies of Cell Captives, which will be led by Tom Jones, and Michael Burns and Andy McComb, both of whom are instructors from Bermuda. Further work will continue on the number and variety of electives offered by the program. For example, Cantor says that ICCIE is also working with the American Society for Healthcare Risk Management (ASHRM) to address the recent interest in health care captives and risk retention groups. “It is important to continue to add to the array of electives that are being offered,” notes Cantor. One of the requirements to maintain the ACI designation is to take continuing education credits each year via the available electives. For this reason, Cantor says, “We have to have a wide variety of topics and then continue to add more each year.” Cantor says that the online component has been the most popular method of training. “While we do offer both online and face-to-face instruction, the flexibility of the online sessions has been obvious,” he points out. Although the online courses do have weekly assignments, he states that the students have flexibility with regard to the readings and assignments over the course of the week. Cantors says that the online approach has opened the door to many more potential students, and while some are initially concerned about this training approach, “once they have a chance to see the demo and how easy it is to complete, they are usually comfortable with this approach.” Additionally, he notes, “We try to accommodate as many regions as possible at times that are workable from Bermuda to Hawaii.” Running with the program As noted previously, ICCIE has from the start been designed as an international organization, and it has taken several steps to assure this broader view of the captive movement. One of the most visible effects of this effort has been the establishment of the Captive Regulators Advisory Committee (C-RAC) to seek guidance from a number of different domiciles. Currently, Cantor says, C-RAC is up and running and has representatives from the regulators offices of the top 10 domiciles in the Western hemisphere. C-RAC was established so that the domiciles could provide important feedback to ICCIE about the program content as well as the overall direction of the designation programs. The C-RAC group has already held several meetings, and others are scheduled later in the year. “We have had great participation from the larger domiciles,” says Cantor, “and they are also beginning to show good acceptance of the ICCIE program.” He also notes, “Some of the regulators have their staffs signed up for the courses.” Another sign of the maturity of the program is the announcements of two scholarships. The first one is the Harry House Scholarship, which is sponsored by the Housing Authority Insurance Group in Cheshire, Connecticut. This scholarship is reserved for a minority student enrolled in a risk management program at the college or university level. The second one is provided by ICCIE’s Distinguished Scholar Sponsor—the Vermont Captive Insurance Association. This scholarship will be granted to an employee of a VCIA member and will be based on work in the industry and community involvement. Establishment of the scholarships shows the increasing acceptance of the ICCIE program and the continued commitment of the captive insurance community. Conclusion Looking at ICCIE’s growth and accomplishments, Cantor says, “There are so many people who have lent their talents, their good names and, indirectly, their company’s good name, to this effort. Sometimes it is overwhelming. We have had a great reception from the captive insurance community and all of the people working in it.” But, he goes on to note, “Make no mistake, it’s the high level of the instructors that is the key reason that most of the students come to the courses. The feedback that we are getting from the students is pretty clear on this point. Our job is to find and keep such a high-level group of instructors, thus continuing the growth that ICCIE has experienced this far.” * The Author |
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