Editor's Note: Pull the Trigger

As you read this, the leaders of the Captive Insurance Companies Association are pushing hard to hire a full-time lobbyist. It's a good idea, and it's high time CICA make haste and pulled the trigger.

Nothing gets done in Washington, D.C., without a hired gun. Given the packed legislative agenda facing the insurance and reinsurance industries in the wake of Dodd-Frank, it's a good bet that any captive industry lobbyist is going to be working overtime.

State domiciles, from Vermont to Montana to Hawaii, could use a little help too. State captive organizations do a good job representing the industry in front of legislature, but less so before Congress. That's where a CICA lobbyist would step in.

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There is a risk, of course, in that the CICA may find itself in a sticky position with regard to its domicile neutrality. What if two domiciles square off because they're on opposite sides of a piece of federal legislation? Which side of the issue is the CICA going to back? CICA leaders know this, and insist they are not going to take sides. After 40 years of domicile neutrality, I think we can trust their word.

Captive interests have banded together in the past, and often with satisfying results. It was CICA and the Vermont Captive Insurance Association, which nearly five years ago managed to rebuff a U.S. Treasury initiative that would have prohibited onshore captives from deducting discounted loss reserves.

It was also a wake-up call for the captive industry to fight back. The only question is how it took so long for the CICA so long to hire a legislative affairs expert.

-- Cyril Tuohy, Managing Editor

March 1, 2012

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