Vermont Captive Insurance Association To Hold 2021 Conference Online

The Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) will hold its 2021 annual conference as an online event due to the ongoing economic and public health impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The organization cited hotel/meeting space contractual obligations, programming and technology decisions, ideal platform availability, and projected budget constraints for many companies for 2021 as factors in the decision.

In addition, VCIA said it studied feedback from member organizations that indicate there would be travel restrictions in place for 2021, as well as reduced budgets for in-person events.

In order to make the conference more accessible, "going virtual was chosen as the best and most inclusive option," Rich Smith, president of the Burlington-based VCIA, said in an October 23 statement.

"As much as VCIA would like to meet in person, the prospect for having large-scale in-person conferences in 2021 is not a sure thing," Mr. Smith said. "Multiple economic and public health impacts of the pandemic are being felt among our members."

The VCIA, Mr. Smith said, will build on the success of this year's annual conference, which also was conducted as a virtual event, and will "keep the quality of the education as high as ever and increase opportunities for the people to connect in small-group video settings during the event. We are listening to the needs of the entire membership and are acting in ways that meet their needs."

In recent years, more than 1,000 people have attended the VCIA annual conference.

The 2021 conference is scheduled for August 10–12.

Vermont, which had 585 captives at the end of 2019, has been the largest US captive domicile for a number of years, as well as the world's third-largest captive insurance domicile.