Insights and Innovations: Gavin Souter Previews the 2025 World Captive Forum

Editor's Note:  As the editor of Business Insurance, Gavin Souter has a front-row seat to the trends and innovations shaping the insurance and risk management landscape. With decades of experience covering the industry, Mr. Souter brings a wealth of knowledge and insight into the evolving role of captives in addressing emerging challenges. 

Leading into the 2025 World Captive Forum, we caught up with Mr. Souter to discuss the state of the captive insurance industry, the opportunities and risks that captives are uniquely positioned to address, and what attendees can look forward to at this year's Forum. His perspectives set the stage for an engaging and thought-provoking event.  

You've seen the captive insurance space evolve over the years. What changes or trends have stood out the most to you, and how do you think these will shape the conversations at the 2025 World Captive Forum?  

I started reporting on the captive sector in 1991, and over the past 34 years, the most significant changes I've heard about have been the variety of risks covered by captives and the structures of captives. Captive owners have moved from covering mainly predictable liability exposures, such as workers compensation and auto liability, to a range of risks, from employee benefits to cyber. In addition, the choice of captive structures and captive domiciles has ballooned.

This will all be reflected at the World Captive Forum in the range of domiciles represented and the variety of topics on the formal agenda and, no doubt, discussed during private business meetings.

Captives are known for adapting to challenging risks. What new or emerging risks do you think will be top of mind for attendees this year, and how are captives uniquely positioned to address them? 

From Business Insurance's discussions with captive managers over the past few years, the focus of owners often seems to be how to prudently use a captive as a tool to navigate what has been a difficult commercial market. One of the main reasons for buying insurance is to transfer risk, but in instances where capacity is not available at a realistic price, captives are brought in to fund deductibles or replace coverage layers. For the past several years, the property insurance market has been a problem for buyers, but those pressures appear to be easing for many, and the focus may turn to other challenging areas, such as tough liability exposures.  

The World Captive Forum is known for bringing people together. In your view, how does this collaboration drive innovation, and are there any developments or ideas you're particularly excited to see discussed this year? 

The great thing about the World Captive Forum is the variety of professionals that attend in terms of their roles in the captive sector and where they are located. Bringing owners, prospective owners, regulators, and a wide variety of service providers together inevitably sparks many new ideas and discussions. Like many people, I'm interested in how artificial intelligence is changing risks and risk management, so I'll be interested to hear attendees' perspectives in the sessions and informal discussions. 

With data and technology transforming risk management, how do you see captives using these tools more effectively, and do you think this will be a major focus during the forum? 

I think the industry as a whole is still just scratching the surface on this, but clearly, using artificial intelligence (AI) to manage data, assess exposures, and improve efficiency is a big focus for a lot of companies. There are several sessions on data and AI at the forum, and I expect they will generate a lot of interest. 

Regulation is always an important topic in the captive world. Are there any recent developments or issues you think will generate significant discussion at the forum? 

There are often regulatory tweaks in various domiciles, and I'm sure they will be explored at the forum, but the session we have on captive developments in the United Kingdom and Lloyd's could generate some discussions. The United Kingdom is in the midst of a consultation period on a regulatory structure for captives, and the market appears to be responding positively. 

This year's keynote from Dr. Michel Léonard, chief economist and data scientist at the Insurance Information Institute, will explore the economic and political factors shaping property-casualty insurance performance. Which aspects of his presentation do you think will resonate most with the captive audience, and how might his insights inspire meaningful discussions at the forum? 

We remain in a difficult period for insurance buyers, particularly for property owners in the growing number of states with significant catastrophe exposures and companies with large vehicle fleets. In addition, the political changes we are experiencing, regardless of your views on them, generate some uncertainty. I think Dr. Léonard's insights will provide attendees with the combination of broad-based analysis and a deep dive into specific data they need to look at risk management holistically. 

Business Insurance has been a go-to resource for the industry. How do you approach covering captives, and are there any upcoming stories or reports tied to the forum that you're excited about? 

For the past 5 decades, we have used a combination of data and reporting to cover captives. Our directory and rankings of captive domiciles and captive managers provide readers with an overview of the market, and our stories about the market help put the numbers in perspective and provide insight into industry trends. Our annual rankings will appear in the April/May edition of Business Insurance, and I'm looking forward to talking with owners and service providers at the forum to develop the accompanying report.

(Photo of Gavin Souter, courtesy of Business Insurance.)