
Business insurance can be expensive and hard to parse, especially if your needs wind up making it hard to get everything from a single provider. Unfortunately, the more policies you have to juggle, the more complex your cash flow management gets, because many policies only bill once or twice a year for large chunks of coverage. The fewer of those you have, the better. Even in cases where you get a monthly bill, having too many outgoing cash dates can be troublesome, and that’s before you ask whether your insurers are really anticipating your needs. Group captive insurance sidesteps that by putting you in charge of your policy.
How It Works
A captive insurer is quite literally an insurance company you own, so you set the terms of the policy and control the company’s procedures and finances. That means you get any profits back in years where the insurer takes in more than it pays out, but it also means you are responsible for maintaining its cash reserves. That’s where group captives are really useful. A group ownership model means you only have to come up with a fraction of the reserve cash and operating funds, because you’re partnering with other companies who want to own their insurers. It also means that any profits are split, but with the wider risk pool, it’s easier to keep the company solvent because it’s easier to keep those cash reserves up. It’s the same principle other insurers rely on, but this time it’s bringing you the savings.
Managing a Group Captive
One of the pitfalls of starting any subsidiary company or supplier for yourself is the work associated with managing it. While it’s true that a service company is often a simpler solution than a new department within the core business, it’s also true that as the owner, you can easily get distracted with too much focus on the business that should be less work to run. That’s where outsourcing the work can help, and outsourced administrative service is the default with group captives instead of being an extra you have to hunt for.