WHY MORE COMPANIES ARE CHOOSING CAPTIVES IN 2026

For many businesses, the conversation around captive insurance has changed.

A captive is no longer viewed simply as an alternative for companies that cannot find traditional insurance. Increasingly, well-run businesses are using captives as a long-term strategy to gain greater control over insurance costs, claims, and risk.

And the numbers are becoming difficult to ignore.

AM Best recently reported that rated U.S. captives continued to outperform their commercial-market counterparts and estimated they generated approximately $8.2 billion in savings for their organizations over the past five years.

So, why are more companies evaluating captives in 2026?

1. Greater control over insurance costs

Traditional insurance pricing can change significantly from one renewal to the next — sometimes regardless of an individual company’s performance.

Captives allow businesses to retain a portion of their own risk and build an insurance strategy around their own loss experience rather than the broader market alone.

2. More predictable long-term pricing

One of the greatest challenges for CFOs and business owners is budgeting for insurance when rates, deductibles, and carrier appetites can change every year.

A properly structured captive can create greater stability and predictability over multiple renewal cycles.

3. The opportunity to retain underwriting profit

In the traditional market, a good loss year generally benefits the insurance carrier.

Within a captive structure, favorable loss performance can potentially create underwriting profit, investment income, and future distributions back to the captive or its owners.

Simply put: companies that invest heavily in safety can have an opportunity to participate financially in the results they help create.

4. More control over claims

Captives can give companies significantly greater visibility into how claims are handled, defended, reserved, and ultimately resolved.

For businesses with meaningful workers’ compensation, auto liability, general liability, or other casualty exposures, better claims management can have a material impact on total insurance cost.

The best captive programs go far beyond buying an insurance policy.

They bring together claims management, safety, loss control, data, risk financing, and long-term planning under one strategy.

That shift is one of the biggest reasons captives continue to gain traction across industries including transportation, construction, real estate, manufacturing, energy, environmental services, and private equity-backed businesses.

At Union Risk Services, we help companies evaluate both traditional and captive insurance strategies so they can understand the economics, risks, and potential long-term benefits before making that decision.

Interested in seeing how your current insurance program would compare to a captive structure?

Request a Captive Insurance Review

For more information on how these trends might impact your business or to explore captive insurance options, please respond to this email. We’re here to help you navigate the complexities of the commercial insurance market and achieve your strategic goals.

Stay safe and prosperous!