What independent-minded agents should know before bringing in a client to a captive.
You've got a client who's ready to talk about captives. Maybe they brought it up. Maybe you did. Either way, you're trying to decide whom you can trust with one of the best accounts on your books.
So you're asking:
What's the difference between Captive Coalition and a legacy program like Captive Resources?
It's a fair question—and an important one.
The captive your client joins determines more than what they pay for insurance. It can also affect your role as their agent years from now.
I should tell you up front: I'm not neutral.
I built Captive Coalition. Before that, I spent years as an agent submitting accounts to legacy programs like Captive Resources. I've been on both sides of the table.
So here's my promise: I'll lay out the differences as fairly as I can, including where a legacy program may be the better fit. By the end, you'll know what to ask, what to watch for, and what matters most to your client and your agency.
Even if the answer isn't us.
Legacy programs built captives for business owners to join.
We built one for agents to bring their clients into.
That may sound like a small distinction. It isn't.
It affects how much of your time gets spent before a client is even qualified, who leads the meeting, how much collateral your client puts up, who stays involved after the client joins, and who is in their corner when something goes wrong.
Here are five moments when you'll notice the difference.
I remember this from my agent days.
I'd spend half a day putting together a submission on a template that seemed determined to make the process harder than it needed to be. Loss runs, premiums, every line of coverage broken out exactly the way they wanted it. Then I'd send it off and wait.
Eventually, the answer would come back:
Not a fit.
And sometimes the reason was something they could have told me in the first five minutes.
An agent recently told me he'd had the same experience. His deal died over an issue with the client's auto and general liability that was apparent from the beginning.
His reaction?
"They could have told me up front."
That's the traditional approach: send us everything, and we'll tell you later whether the account works.
We take a different approach.
Before you ever bring up a captive with your client, give us four numbers: workers' compensation, general liability, and auto premiums, plus average claims.
It takes about five minutes.
From there, you'll know whether the client looks like a fit, a "not yet," or a pass before you've spent hours preparing a submission or put your name behind an opportunity that isn't going anywhere.
That matters.
When you're introducing the captive concept to one of your best clients, you want a pretty good idea why you're having the conversation in the first place.
Once a legacy program accepted the account, the message I received was pretty clear:
Introduce us to your client, then stay out of the way.
Think about what that means.
It's your relationship. You've spent years earning your client's trust. Yet you're now sitting on the sidelines while someone else leads one of the most important conversations your client will have about their insurance program.
What does the client take away from that?
That you're the person who made the introduction.
I understand why agents sometimes go along with it. One of the biggest concerns I hear—right after the fear of losing the client—is the fear of looking unprepared.
You don't want to bring your best client into a captive conversation and get caught off guard by a question you can't answer. Handing the meeting over can feel like the safer option.
We handle it differently.
You run the meeting. We sit beside you.
I once flew airplanes. The first time I flew the 777, I wasn't alone. A check airman—a senior pilot with extensive experience in that aircraft—sat in the seat beside me.
That's the model we use.
On your first presentation, we're right there with the numbers, the details, and the answers. You don't have to practice on your client. You get the support you need while still leading the conversation.
Your client walks away knowing who brought the strategy to them.
You did.
This is where a lot of good opportunities quietly fall apart.
Your client likes the concept. They see the potential. Then they see the collateral.
Collateral is the money your client puts up to help guarantee that the captive can pay its claims.
Recently, we put a $500,000 account side by side.
The legacy structure required roughly $455,000 in collateral, built up over three years. That's close to a full year's premium sitting on the sidelines.
Another agent told me a legacy program asked his client for $435,000 in collateral on approximately $200,000 of expected claims.
His reaction?
"They haven't changed it in 20 years."
On that same $500,000 account, our collateral requirement was about $190,000, split across the first two years.
Here's what can happen next.
The client says, "Let me think about it."
The agent decides captives probably don't fit their book.
And both walk away from an opportunity that might have worked—just not on those terms.
There's another issue worth remembering: clients often assume the collateral requirement will be much higher than it actually is.
I've had a business owner assume he'd need to put up $1 million. The actual number was a couple hundred thousand.
He was astounded.
That's why it's worth running the numbers before anyone makes a decision based on an assumption.
I recently spent time with an agent who lost his largest client to a legacy captive.
It wasn't because of service.
It wasn't because of price.
His client became interested in captives after another business owner invited him to join the captive he belonged to. That captive didn't allow the client's existing agent to participate.
The agent never had a chance to offer his client a different option.
By the time he found out what was happening, he was no longer at the center of the account.
Then things got worse.
The broker working with that captive began going after the other business the agent still had: excess coverage, directors and officers coverage, employment practices coverage.
Not every legacy captive operates this way. But I saw this firsthand, and it was worse than the stories I'd heard secondhand.
Our approach is different.
You stay the agent of record on the account—and on every other line.
We don't do broker-of-record changes.
We don't work directly with your clients.
We don't have producers waiting to pick up your account at renewal.
These aren't promises we make when everything is going well. They're part of our Five Rules, and they're in writing.
Let me tell you about a business owner who has been part of a legacy captive for years.
He was hit with a major lawsuit. The insurance company backing the captive refused to pay, and he ended up covering a significant part of the cost with company money.
When he brought the issue to the people running the captive, the response was essentially:
"Well, that's unfortunate."
And that was it.
No one was in his corner.
He also felt he had very little say in how the captive was being run. His question to me was simple:
"If we own this captive, why are they setting the agenda?"
Group size can make that problem even more noticeable.
Legacy groups can have more than 200 members. When you're one voice among 200, it's harder for your concerns to be heard.
Another business owner in a group that size told me:
"I don't even feel like I get a say. I feel like I'm in an insurance carrier, not a captive."
Now put yourself in that position.
If you're the agent who brought that client into the captive, whose name do you think they're going to remember when something goes wrong?
We cap our groups at 50 members so each member's voice has a better chance of being heard.
And if one of our members were in that situation, I'd want the carrier's claims people on the phone that day. If the situation required a coverage attorney, we'd bring one in.
Carriers will disagree over claims. That's part of the insurance business.
The question is whether someone is there to stand with your client when it happens.
I promised to be fair, so here's the other side.
If your client wants the largest possible pool and the longest track record in the business, a legacy program offers those characteristics.
And if your client is already in one, their claims are being handled well, and they're happy with the arrangement, I'm not going to tell you to pull them out.
But if your priority is to remain the agent, lead the client conversation, and keep the other lines you've earned, you're looking for a different kind of relationship.
That's what we built.
Don't start with your entire book.
Pick one client.
Maybe it's your largest account. Maybe it's the one you've been wondering about. Maybe it's the client you think could benefit from a different approach to risk.
Pre-qualify them before you mention captives.
Four numbers.
About five minutes.
You'll know whether the account looks like a fit, a "not yet," or a pass. And if it is worth pursuing, you'll walk into the conversation knowing you have a reason to be there.
Because whatever you decide, there's one thing that shouldn't change:
It's your client. Never ours.