More employers are considering captives as a method to fund their employee benefit programs. We have been reporting on this for the past six months – see previous articles on this weblog. There is an excellent article in the March 2009 Employee Benefit News on captives. The theme of the article is that “captive owners can have increased control through tailor-made benefit designs and claims cost management.”
We are currently working with a captive manager with a proven track record of establishing and managing captives for employers who self fund their group medical plans. A unique scheme to band small employer groups into a captive without becoming a MEWA may be a viable option for employer groups that are currently fully-insured with 50 – 500 employees. These employers can band together for the purpose of establishing a captive to fund their health care plans, yet remain independent of each other.