Pinnacle University is an annual event hosted by Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc., where analysts and actuarial science students from various universities collaborate to research and present on a relevant topic in the insurance industry. This year, our group explored how universities obtain insurance.

The Delaware Captive Insurance Association (DCIA) held its Spring Forum May 7-8 at the Chase Center in Wilmington, Delaware. Captive service providers, captive owners and Delaware’s captive regulators gathered in attendance for sessions covering a range of relevant topics. The conference carried regulation as its unofficial theme, perhaps not unexpectedly, with each session analyzing a different aspect or angle. The impact of politics on captive regulatory decisions, the legal hurdles of insuring the key players of the cannabis industry, and the various state-specific treatments of self-procurement tax were a few of the topics covered.

A Pinnacle client recently inquired about a paper regarding an approach to estimating the maximum premium appropriate for a captive insurance company. The author sought to determine a ceiling on the premium a company might pay for insurance by treating insurance as a put option and applying a popular financial tool, the Black-Scholes model. 

Recent years have been difficult for the commercial automobile insurance industry. Both frequency and severity have been increasing while rate increases have not been sufficient to keep up. Some large carriers have pulled out of certain segments of the market as well. This has affected long-haul trucking and passenger transport in particular. 

During the first week of November my colleague, Arthur Randolph, and I had the opportunity to visit a number of the key service providers in Puerto Rico and experience firsthand the dynamic activity of this captive insurance domicile.