The “creep” of increasing international regulation is a concern often cited by captive associations, service providers and local insurance supervisors. Never has that been more apparent than in the September edition of Captive Review.

While the 2015 Captive Manager Survey again placed Tightening Global Accounting Standards and Regulation at the top end of concerns among managers, we have also published first reactions to the International Association of Insurance Supervisors’ (IAIS) application paper on captives.

Couple that with a number of enlightening conversations at the Vermont Captive Insurance Association’s (VCIA) annual conference and it is becoming apparent the IAIS’ piece of work is viewed with suspicion by many within the industry.

The paper is broad and does cover a large number of areas – although not Series captives as Delaware Insurance Commissioner Karen Weldin Stewart points out on p12 – but it has also been deemed to be of little help to established and sophisticated regulators.

It has also been labelled as “providing more questions than answers” for the younger generation of supervisors and emerging jurisdictions.

Once the IAIS publishes the full list of comment letters received during the consultation it will be telling to see the extent to which the industry is united or divided on the merits and drawbacks of such an international approach.

The VCIA conference was another successful gathering in the United States’ largest onshore domicile. As ever, it transcended its own borders and regulators and captive owners from all the over country were among the more than 1,000 delegates.

Captive Review hosted the US Captive Services Awards in Burlington on the eve of the VCIA conference for the first time and it was a tremendous success. Twenty-six awards were won with the full list of winners to be published in the October edition of the magazine.

I would like to say a special congratulations, however, to Paul Johnson, formerly director of captive operations at American telecommunications giant, Verizon.

Paul picked up the Outstanding Contribution by an Individual award, presented to him on the night by Rich Smith, president of VCIA.

Paul retired from his role at Verizon, where he oversaw the management of the firm’s three pure captives, earlier this year and has long been recognised as a forward thinker among his captive owning peers and the wider industry. It was a pleasure to witness Paul pick up this award.