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Event Profile

2023 VCIA Annual Conference

Date(s):
August 7 — 10, 2023
Venue:
DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel and Conference Center
870 Williston Rd
South Burlington, VT 05403 
Website:
https://tinyurl.com/vciaconference
Fee(s):
This event has a fee
Description:
Enjoy top-quality captive education, access to industry leaders & networking opportunities with hundreds of professionals. Meals included in registration fee. For Full Conference Pass registrants, please only register for one session per time slot.
Questions? Want to register a group of individuals? Email Ella at estevens@vcia.com.
  • 00. VCIA 2023 Event Attendance Acknowledgement of Risk
    Type: Notification

    Acknowledgement of Risk

  • 1:00pm - 4:30pm 01. Captive Immersion
    Type: Meeting

    A deep dive of the who, why and what of captive formation.

  • 8:00am - 9:30am 02. Newcomers Orientation
    Type: Meeting

    First time attendees gather and learn how to get the most out of the conference.

  • 9:00am - 11:30am 03. Captive Owners' Tour - Lake Champlain Chocolates
    Type: Meeting

    We invite all captive owners attending the 2023 VCIA Annual Conference to join us on a tour inside Lake Champlain Chocolates’ new manufacturing facility.

  • 10:00 am - 12:00 pm 04. Captives 101 - What's Involved in Forming and Owning a Captive
    Type: Session

    Learn how long-term captive success is accomplished by careful planning.

  • 10:15 am - 11:15 am 05. Discussion Group: What is ESG for you and your Captive?
    Type: Meeting

    An open forum to learn more about ESG and strategies on how to use a captive to address a parent company's ESG issues and goals.

  • 10:30 am - 11:30 am 06. Tips for Communicating the Value of Your Captive
    Type: Session

    Learn about ways to communicate the value of your captive to individuals in your organization.

  • 11:45 am - 12:45 pm 07. Captive Owners' Lunch & Discussion
    Type: Meeting

    Connect with fellow captive owners of many industry types!

  • 1:15 pm - 2:15 pm 08. The Roles, Duties, and Obligations of a Captive Board Member
    Type: Session

    Learn the basics of a captive board, as well as expectations and goals of the annual board meeting.

  • 1:15 pm - 2:15 pm 09. Where Will Captives Go Next? The Latest Uses for Captives
    Type: Session

    This session will walk through several recent examples of captives leading the way in product innovation and solving emerging business problems.

  • 1:30 pm - 2:30 pm 10. Discussion Group: Building Talent in the Captive Industry
    Type: Meeting

    Learn how companies can work toward a shared goal of building and maintaining a strong and engaged workforce.

  • 3:00 pm - 4:30 pm 11. Special Event with Keynote & Awards
    Type: Meeting

    Celebrate the recipients of the Captive Crusader, Honorary Member, and Industry Service awards followed by an informative and engaging session with keynote speaker Juliette Kayyem.

  • 8:45 am - 9:45 am 12. Securing Your Captive's Future: The Power of Reinsurance
    Type: Session

    Learn about key reinsurance considerations from a captive owner, broker, and reinsurer's perspective.

  • 8:45 am - 9:45 am 13. Leveraging New Tech and Data Visualization Tools for Captives
    Type: Session

    Learn and discuss how captives can leverage new tech and data visualization tools.

  • 10:00 am - 11:00 am 14. Igniting Board Engagement - Innovative Ways to Fire-Up Your Board
    Type: Session

    Learn about various tools and ideas for invigorating board members and cultivating their engagement before, during, and after board meetings.

  • 10:00 am - 11:00 am 15. Back to the Well - New Ways our Captive Helps our Organization
    Type: Session

    Learn how some organizations are leveraging the prior success of their captive to address various issues affecting the industry.

  • 10:00 am - 11:00 am 16. Captives: Structure versus Risk - Case Study
    Type: Session

    Review the structure of a captive program and show how a captive is an ongoing operation that evolves with its risk management in many ways.

  • 10:00 am - 11:00 am 17. Newcomer's Guide to the Captive Industry
    Type: Session

    Part I of a two-part session where emerging leaders in the industry provide a newcomer's guide to the industry.

  • 11:15 am - 12:15 pm 18. The Economic Landscape and Your Captive's Investment Portfolio
    Type: Session

    Receive an update on the state of the economy, macroeconomic themes, global monetary policy, the overall direction of interest rates, and health of capital markets.

  • 11:15 am - 12:15 pm 19. Discussion Group: Newcomer's Guide to the Captive Industry (part 2)
    Type: Meeting

    After the panel from emerging leaders in part 1 of this topic, partake in a discussion related to ways to get involved in the industry and much more.

Stacey Alden
Organization: State of Vermont, Department of Financial Regulation


As Chief Analyst, Stacey Alden is charged with co-managing the Captive Division's examination/analysis team and overseeing Vermont licensed captives, including risk retention groups. Stacey is responsible for oversight of the analysis function including maintaining risk focused analysis processes, training and ensuring accreditation standards are met. Stacey has accumulated twenty-two years of captive insurance industry experience as a regulator, captive manager and auditor. She is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, Vermont Society of Certified Public Accountants and Society of Financial Examiners (SOFE). Stacey is on SOFE’s Board of Governors, Examination’s Committee and Nomination’s Committee. Additionally, she serves as Vermont’s SOFE State Chair.


Amy Angell
Organization: Milliman, Inc.


Amy is a Principal and Consulting Actuary with Milliman, Inc. She provides strategic consulting with respect to the formation, ongoing operation and valuation of alternative risk financing vehicles, including self-insurers, captive insurance companies, risk pools and risk retention groups. Her areas of expertise include casualty insurance pricing and loss reserving, financial modeling and capital evaluation, and management reporting and benchmarking. Areas of insurance covered include workers’ compensation, general liability, products liability, auto liability, employment practices liability, asbestos liability and professional liability. Amy also reviews captive and risk retention group applications for the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation. She is a Fellow of the Casualty Actuarial Society and a Member of the American Academy of Actuaries. She is also a Member of the Casualty Practice Council and the Council on Professionalism of the American Academy of Actuaries.


David Angus
Organization: Paul Frank + Collins P.C.


Dave Angus is a member of the captive insurance team at Paul Frank + Collins P.C., a law firm in Burlington, Vermont. He has advised captive insurance companies and risk retention groups for the past 17 years, gaining a deep understanding of the many legal and regulatory facets facing these companies. He is active in the captive insurance industry serving on the legislative committee of VCIA since 2007. Dave has twice chaired this committee. Prior to joining PF+C, Dave pursued a career as a transactional attorney in firms in Boston and Vermont. For the last decade, Dave owned and operated a firm he founded in Vermont. Dave holds a B.S. from Boston College, a J.D. from Tulane Law School, and an LL.M. in taxation from Boston University School of Law. Dave is admitted to practice law in Vermont and Massachusetts.


Daniel Duncan
Organization: Agile Premium Finance Captive Specialists


Dan began his career in the insurance premium finance industry in 1994 by forming the first premium finance company that catered specifically to the local San Diego independent insurance agency market. He manages TPA services for several national premium finance programs on behalf of bank-owned premium finance companies and facilitates numerous group and pure captive transactions. He’s also an expert in licensing and has a thorough understanding of regulatory compliance requirements in all 50 states.


Daniel Giunta
Organization: AM Best


Daniel, a graduate of DeSales University, began his career working at AM Best in 2005. Initially, Daniel serviced the insurance industry within the information services sector, then in 2020 transitioned into business development under the Rating Services division. Daniel works with various insurance companies, with a primary focus on captive insurance companies. Daniel is responsible for analyzing a companies’ portfolio to guide the company in the initial process of obtaining a rating from AM Best.


John James
Organization: Performa


John is Performa’s Head of Business Development responsible for leading the firm’s new business development and marketing effort by cultivating relationships with captive managers, captive insurance companies and industry service providers. He has been a conference task force member for various captive insurance associations over the years and is a part of CICA’s Membership Committee. Prior to joining Performa in 2014, he was a Treasury Analyst at UVM Medical Center. He has extensive investment management experience as a fixed income product manager, including 10 years with Standish Mellon Asset Management in Boston followed by similar roles at Dwight Asset Management and Sentinel Investments. John graduated from Lafayette College with a double major in International Affairs & Spanish and earned an M.S. in Investment Management from Boston University’s School of Management.


Christina Kindstedt
Organization: Advantage Insurance Management (USA) LLC


Christina Kindstedt entered the insurance industry in 2003. She has extensive experience forming and managing captives, cells, Risk Retention Groups (“RRGs”), and Risk Purchasing Groups in various industries. Her clientele ranges from Fortune 500 to non-profits, and are located in and outside the US. For companies that consider captives, Christina conducts feasibility studies and formation services. For companies with existing captives, Christina provides strategic review, expanded use analysis and improvement plans. She has developed and implemented detailed underwriting, financial control and claims administrative procedures for her clients. She is a frequent speaker at industry events and has published several white papers on insurance. She serves on the Board of Directors for the National Risk Retention Association and a number of captive insurance companies. Before founding Advantage Insurance’s office in Vermont in 2017, Christina spent 14 years with the world’s 3rd largest brokerage firm where she built and led its RRG practice and service team.


Matt Kunish
Organization: RiverStone


Matt Kunish is the Chief Business Development Officer at RiverStone, a group of insurance, reinsurance and service companies specializing in the acquisition and management of legacy business and captive insurance liabilities. With over 30 years of insurance industry experience, Matt leads the Business Development unit of the Acquisitions, Actuarial, Data Science and Analytics groups. Prior to RiverStone, he worked at Crum & Forster for 10 years, the last six years as Chief Actuary. Before that Matt was a consulting actuary for Milliman Inc. for 5 years in New York, working on a variety of consulting assignments in the US and Europe. He began his career as a consulting actuary for Deloitte (formerly Bacon & Woodrow) in London. Matt earned a b.s. with honors in mathematics and economics from the University of Bristol.


Daniel Linton
Organization: Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.


Danny Linton is a senior consulting actuary with Pinnacle Actuarial Resources working remotely from Nashville, TN. He has been in the property/casualty industry since 2005 and his work has been focused on loss reserving, loss forecasting, captive feasibility studies, capital modeling and cost allocation mechanisms. Specifically, his expertise involves analyses of self-insureds, public entity risk pools and captive insurance companies. He currently serves on the American Academy of Actuaries Workers Compensation Committee and the Actuarial Standards Board Casualty Committee of the Casualty Actuarial Society.


Cameron MacArthur
Organization: AI Insurance


Cameron is the CEO of AI Insurance, which makes a modern cloud-based software platform specifically for running captives and Risk Retention Groups. Cameron is a Northwestern graduate, and has been awarded for his research in human-computer interaction. With a background as a cognitive software engineer at IBM, Cameron is focused on bringing a data-centered approach to the insurance space so that companies can unlock the potential of AI.


Elyssa Nagle
Organization: Johnson Lambert LLP


Elyssa Nagle, CPA, ACI is a Principal in the Burlington, Vermont office of Johnson Lambert LLP. Her responsibilities consist primarily of providing audit services to various insurance entities. Since joining the firm in 2014, Elyssa has worked with a wide variety of commercial insurance companies, captive insurance companies, risk retention groups and other alternative risk companies. Elyssa is also actively involved in the Vermont Captive Insurance Emerging Leaders (VCIEL) group.


Jeffrey Packard
Organization: PMA Companies


Jeff Packard has over 40 years of expertise in the insurance industry, with an emphasis in the marketing and sales of alternative risk transfer products coupled with an expertise in the underwriting arena. He is an Assistant Vice President for the Captive Division of The PMA Insurance Group, a multi-lines property and casualty carrier with a specialty in workers’ compensation. Since 1990, Jeff has worked in the alternative market area, including serving as Senior Regional Vice President for Mutual Risk Management, a Bermuda-based company that specialized in providing for Fortune 500 companies, captives and rent-a-captive solutions for their insurance needs. He continues to teach underwriting and financial classes for insurance professionals, and lectures at The Fox Business School of Temple University, in Philadelphia.


Kevin Seabury
Organization: Opus Investment Management


Kevin joined Opus Investment Management in 2017 and leads the sales and marketing efforts as the Director of Business Development. He has over fifteen years of industry experience, thirteen of those years have been within business development. Prior to joining Opus, Kevin was with Symmetry Partners as an Advisor Services Consultant and worked in Business Development roles with F-Squared, MetLife & Travelers Life & Annuity.


Jason Tyng
Organization: HDI Global Insurance Company


Jason Tyng is the Vice President and Captive Lead of the US Captive Solutions Group for HDI Global Insurance. Prior to Joining HDI, Jason spent 7 years in the risk management space, handling placement of both international and domestic programs for large multinational companies. In the 10 previous years, Jason held various commercial underwriting positions including underwriting alternative risk financing and single parent and group captive business. Jason is a graduate of the University of Maryland with a b.s. in Political Science. 


Tracy Hassett
Organization: Educators Health Insurance Exchange


As President and CEO of edHEALTH, LLC and its stop-loss captive Educators Health Insurance Exchange, Tracy is also the current Board Chair on the Vermont Captive Insurance Association Board of Directors. Recognizing the financial challenges of schools nationwide, Tracy played a leading role in launching edHEALTH, a consortium of educational institutions coming together to save money on insurance costs and improve the healthcare experience for faculty and staff. Now in its tenth year, edHEALTH continues to grow in member schools under Tracy’s strategy, vision and leadership. Tracy brings a unique strategic perspective to human resources and finance at educational institutions. She’s a self-describing recovering Human Resources Officer, serving 17 years as Vice President of Human Resources at Worcester Polytechnic Institute and past president of Southern New England CUPA (2012-2013). She is an alumna of Roger Williams University and lives in Bristol, RI, with her husband and their two labs.


Aaron Hillebrandt
Organization: Pinnacle Actuarial Resources, Inc.


Aaron brings considerable experience in assignments involving loss reserving and statements of actuarial opinion, funding studies, loss cost projections, captive feasibility studies, and personal and commercial lines ratemaking. Aaron also previously lectured in mathematics at Illinois State University, and is an honorably discharged sergeant and combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps.


Kevin Mead
Organization: Vermont Captive Insurance Association


Kevin Mead is the President of the VCIA, the largest captive insurance trade association in the world. VCIA leads the industry in educational and networking opportunities, as well as legislative advocacy on the state and federal levels. Kevin became President of the VCIA in early 2022 and has a wealth of association management and financial experience that demonstrates his leadership ability. Prior to VCIA, he engineered a merger of three global independent accounting associations and forming PrimeGlobal, which represented 2,000 partners and 14,000 employees in 90+ countries. Holding two master’s degrees related to association management and finance, Kevin plans to build out the captive industry’s flagship conference, increase VCIA membership and membership value, and evolve the organization amid the current pandemic and economic challenges.


Jason Palmer
Organization: WTW


With over 25 years at the firm, Jason’s primary responsibilities include service in all facets of captive consulting and captive management engagements ranging from risk retention groups, group captives and pure captive programs. Throughout his career, Jason has handled a significant portfolio of captive insurance companies (pure and group) with services involving accounting, underwriting and regulatory compliance. He has helped implement many new captive programs in several US captive domiciles. Jason also serves as a member of the Board of Directors and as an Officer of many captive insurance companies. In his current role, Jason is responsible for the US captive management t team, serves as project lead on several captive consulting engagements and is the lead client executive on a portfolio of captive insurance companies (pure and group). Jason joined Willis Corroon Management (Vermont), Ltd. after graduating summa cum laude from Champlain College in Burlington, Vermont, with a B.S. in accounting. Jason is a Certified Public Accountant licensed in the State of Vermont and is a member, in good standing, with the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants. Jason is also a licensed property & casualty insurance producer in several US states. He is an active Board of Director member for the Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA) and International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE).


Jay Curtis
Organization: Aon Insurance Managers USA Inc.


Jay is a member of the local Aon leadership team and the relationship manager for a number of captive clients domiciled throughout the U.S. He is responsible for overseeing the delivery of financial, regulatory compliance and advisory services to his portfolio of clients. Jay entered the captive insurance industry in 1994. Throughout his 30-year career in the captive industry, he has played an integral role in all aspects of the formation, development, management and on-going advisory of a wide variety of captive insurance companies including: single parent captives, group captives, risk retention groups and protected cell companies. Jay has experience in a variety of industries including but not limited to: healthcare, manufacturing, higher education institutions, construction, real estate, financial services, transportation and pharmaceuticals. Jay graduated from Champlain College with a B.S. in Accounting.


Heidi Rabtoy
Organization: State of Vermont, Department of Financial Regulation


Heidi Rabtoy is the Chief Examiner with the Vermont Department of Financial Regulation – Captive Division, where she supervises the Captive Division's examination staff and oversees the operations of Vermont domiciled captive insurance companies. Heidi has been with the Captive Division for seventeen years and has been involved in all aspects of the analysis and examination processes. Prior to joining the Captive Division, Heidi was in captive management for three years. She received a B.S. in accounting from The University of Vermont and has attained the Certified Public Accountant, Certified Financial Examiner and Senior Professional in Insurance Regulation designations.


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