The inaugural Asia Captive Review Awards were held in Kuala Lumpur on Wednesday, August 1 recognising the emerging market’s captive insurance and risk management industry.
Service providers, captive owners and insurance professionals were lauded for their innovative approach to self-insurance, highlighting the potential for future growth in the region.
The evening concluded with a standing ovation for Raziyah Yahya as she was honoured for her Outstanding Contribution to Asia’s captive industry. Yahya was instrumental in the operation of the Petronas captive for 12 years until her retirement last year.
Labuan picked up the Asian Domicile award, while Guernsey was recognised as the best international domicile for Asian captive owners to utilise.
Kelvin Wu, group senior manager, risk management & insurance at International SOS, was identified as a Rising Star by the judging panel, while Shiwei Jin, global programme & captive regional director for Asia at XL Catlin, won Captive Professional of the Year.
The full list of winners and judges’ comments are listed below.
Category: Actuarial Firm
Winner: EY
Judges comments: EY’s global network and extensive captive expertise impressed the judges. The firm and its practitioners understand the unique nature of captive business. The network covers the entire region, including Singapore, Mainland China, Hong Kong, Korea, Japan and south east Asia. The actuarial services division works with the EY global captive network, ensuring smooth client coordination across all service lines.
Category: Broker of the Year
Winner: AFR Asia Pacific Limited
Judges comments: The Labuan-based broker impressed the judges with its commitment to promoting the captive concept and breadth of services provided to captives and their owners. AFR’s expertise in designing reinsurance structures compliment’s its captive involvement, while they also work with clients on captive feasibility studies.
Highly Commended: MIT Insurance Brokers Sdn Bhd
Category: Captive Consultant
Winner: Willis Towers Watson
Judges comments: The diverse range of expertise, from traditional risk consulting and feasibility studies to analytics and employee benefits, caught the judges’ eyes. The broker’s global captive team is able to leverage these practices within Willis Towers Watson to provide a comprehensive offering to captive clients. These capabilities were clearly evidenced by strong case studies and multiple examples of sophisticated client work with tangible results.
Category: Captive Tax Specialist
Winner: Deloitte
Judges comments: The Deloitte southeast Asia network is present across the region and its insurance tax practice has strong experience with large multinational insurance groups and corporate captives. It has provided recet thought leadership on BEPS and its relevance to captive insurers in Asia, while financial services tax partner Benjamin Tausig is an enthusiastic and knowledgeable speaker on insurance in the local market.
Category: Rising Star
Winner: Kelvin Wu, Group Senior Manager, Risk Management & Insurance, International SOS
Judges comments: Kelvin Wu is a very familiar face to the Asian risk management and captive community. Generous with his time and knowledge, Wu is keen, through his work with PARIMA, to spread the word about sophisticated risk management practices and the value of captive insurance. Prior to joining International SOS in 2014, he worked in JLT Asia’s risk consulting practice for five years. Despite already being a leading light in the region’s risk and insurance management industry, Wu’s career and influence will be one to monitor closely in the coming years.
Category: Employee Benefits Specialist
Winner: Generali Employee Benefits
Judges comments: Generali’s experience in designing and implementing global employee benefits programmes shone through in their submission, which was able to highlight several examples of work with high profile corporates in Asia, and on Asia-based risk. Their network has a strong presence in the region and is very comfortable supporting clients making use of their captives. The judges were also impressed by Generali’s recently enhanced medical reporting.
Category: Law Firm
Winner: HFW
Judges comments: HFW demonstrated the broad range of legal services it provides to captive clients, including captive managers and owners. The judges were impressed by its growing body of work and the established relationships it has built with some of the largest corporate multinationals in the region. Among others, the firm has experience in complex acquisitions and re-structuring captives, an increasingly important area in today’s merger and acquisition environment.
Category: (Re)Insurance Company
Winner: AIG
Judges comments: AIG’s unique offering of sophisticated reinsurance, fronting and captive management services provides a valued option to captive owner clients in the region. The carrier’s client testimonials from high profile multinationals based across Asia impressed the judges, while its commitment to captives, and, in particularly, harnessing technology to drive efficiencies were also noted.
Highly Commended: Zurich
Category: Captive Professional
Winner: Shiwei Jin, Global Program & Captive Regional Director, Asia, XL Catlin
Judges comments: A recent addition to Asia’s captive market, Shiwei Jin has been quick to make a positive impression on the risk management community as well as the wider captive industry. Bringing global programme and captive experience from the London market, Jin has built valuable relationships with local brokers and captive owners, emphasised by a collection of high calibre of testimonials.
Category: Captive Innovation Award
Winner: Aon Captive & Insurance Management
Judges comments: Aon’s Cyber Captive Program impressed the judges because of its foundation as a client focused initiative, addressing a need for new solutions in an emerging area of risk. The programme’s ability to help identify and quantify the risk, provide cyber risk management services, as well as a structure to finance the risk and unlock extra capacity in the market, was noted.
Highly Commended: Swiss Re Corporate Solutions
Category: Asian Domicile
Winner: Labuan IBFC
Judges comments: Labuan’s commitment to captives is unrivalled in the region, and the judges were particularly impressed by the domicile’s efforts to educate the local market on the captive insurance concept in recent years. As a result, more Malaysian businesses are now seeing the value of owning a captive. Labuan has also emerged as another good option for Japanese corporations with risk in south east Asia, while it has begun attracting Singaporean corporates – a notable coup.
Category: Non-Asian Domicile
Winner: Guernsey
Judges comments: Guernsey’s position as an established international captive domicile ensures it remains an attractive option for the Asian market. The jurisdiction has shown a strong commitment to the Asian and, particularly, China market in recent years, including full-time representatives in Hong Kong. There is evidence of China becoming increasingly comfortable doing business with Guernsey and the first Chinese commercial reinsurance company setting up in the domicile is demonstrative of that.
Category: Captive Owner Initiative
Winner: International SOS
Judges comments: International SOS’s use of a Singaporean captive to write life and non-life business has undoubtedly made it one of the success stories of Asia’s emerging captive market. Leveraging, and led by, a sophisticated risk management team, the captive is essentially self-managed while working with third party captive consultants. International SOS also structured the first ever captive-backed employee benefits programme in Asia.
Category: Captive Manager of the Year
Winner: Marsh Captive Solutions
Judges comments: With management operations in all major captive domiciles in Asia, the breadth and depth of Marsh’s captive practice impressed the judges. The manager is one of few with experience managing and implementing successful cell business in the region, an area with good potential for growth, and its ability to tap into the largest captive management operation in the world provides a valued network of expertise for its global clients.
Category: Outstanding Contribution by an Individual
Winner: Raziyah Yahya
Judges Comments: Raziyah Yahya is an instantly recognizable name in Asia’s captive market, having been instrumental in the formation and operation of the Petronas captive from 2005 until retirement in 2017. She joined the board of Energas Insurance (L) Limited in 2005 and was appointed its CEO in 2009. While overseeing one of Asia’s largest captives, Yahya remained committed to educating the next generation of risk and insurance professionals and is still found speaking on the topic of captive insurance today.
