2023 Innovation Awards: Impact Re Sustainability Captive

Zurich North America
Impact Re Sustainability Captive

Finding a way to bring together like-minded businesses that are vested in risk management but also committed to sustainability led Zurich North America to develop Impact Re Ltd., a group captive insurer.

Sustainability is a business imperative for many companies as they focus on environmental, social and governance issues in their operations, said Dawn Hiestand, Schaumburg, Illinois-based executive vice president and head of captives at Zurich North America.

“For this particular captive, we were focused on the environmental components of a company’s business and understanding how we can bring not only aligned values from a company perspective but really the innovative services and products that we have to the marketplace,” Ms. Hiestand said.

Impact Re — originally Envision Re — which launched in January, is domiciled in the Cayman Islands, fronted by Zurich and managed by Waukee, Iowa-based Innovative Captive Strategies.

The member-owned captive offers auto, general liability and workers compensation coverages on a primary basis along with risk management programs to companies in various industries with a sustainability focus.

As businesses look to reduce their carbon footprint and energy consumption, they are increasingly accountable to various legal, compliance and regulatory requirements and standards, Ms. Hiestand said.

“For businesses that are vested in risk management and in containing losses a member-owned group captive allows them to package their insurance coverages into a single structure and to own a component of that risk,” Ms. Hiestand said.

Zurich conducts a standard risk assessment of prospective members of the captive as well as a sustainability assessment of their carbon footprint and energy consumption.

The idea is not to hold them to any single standard but to provide baseline data and a report from which they can develop or adjust their sustainability strategy.

The group captive is managed by a subset of committees. In addition to risk control, finance and underwriting committees, Impact Re has a sustainability committee.

“This committee is accountable for helping not only individual members but the captive overall, and holding them accountable to meeting their sustainability commitments,” she said.

The captive has attracted five members so far, including a solar installation company and a transportation services company with an electric fleet, and has a robust pipeline of additional members, she said.

Industries are at different points in their sustainability strategy, Ms. Hiestand said. “They have different challenges, and the diversity allows the sharing of best practices across industries,” she said.