Everything you ever wanted to know about captives...

As the property and casualty insurance industry continues to consolidate, more and more large employers are considering alternative risk financing arrangements for their workers' compensation programs. One of the increasingly popular alternatives is forming a captive. For many, there's a lot of mystery around exactly what a captive is or isn't. Captive.com provides an excellent round up of articles, white papers, and presentations on captive basics culled from a variety of authoritative industry sources.

Around the end of the year when the bulk of the policy renewals are up for review, there is a tendency to think of workers' comp solely in terms of the financial arrangments that surround it. Yet fundamentally, workers comp is not a financial issue but a human event and a management issue. Manage the event -- or better yet -- prevent it entirely, and the dollars will follow. It should go without saying that employers who don't have their workers' comp experience rigorously under control shouldn't even think of alternative arrangements.