Riley named chair of VCIA annual conference, starts August 13

Attorney William D Riley, a senior member of Paul Frank + Collins’Captive Insurance Group, based in Burlington rings in his coming tenure as the 2013-2014 VCIA chair at the VCIA’s 28th Annual Conference, August 13-15, at the Sheraton Hotel and Conference Center in South Burlington. The VCIA is the largest trade association for captive insurance in the world, providing professional education and lobbying support the state and federal levels for its nearly 500 member companies.
Riley will be the first attorney in private practice to chair the VCIA board of directors, which has historically been led by captive insurance company owners. He brings almost two decades of experience working as an attorney in both the captive and traditional insurance industries. Richard Smith, VCIA President, says: ‘I look forward to Bill assuming the chair of our association. He brings practical leadership and a wealth of awareness of relevant issues as the industry faces increasing challenges from Washington, DC, and beyond.’
About 30 states now have captive insurance statutes. ‘This will be one of the primary issues for my tenure as chair,’says Riley. ‘Each year, more states are enacting captive insurance legislation after seeing what Vermont has done. In terms of my focus, we want to ramp up VCIA’s ability to be proactive in tracking and responding to legislative and regulatory developments impacting the captive industry as a whole and Vermont as the leading onshore domicile. This means monitoring insurance, financial and tax legislation and generally keeping track of what other domiciles and the federal government are doing that impacts captives and their parent companies.’Such efforts will enhance VCIA’s abilities to lead, respond and ultimately protect the interests of its members.
In spite of challenges from other captive domiciles, Vermont continues to attract and retain the ‘cream of the crop’in terms of the types of companies that form and operate captives here. ‘It is a real business partnership between the State and the captives,’says Riley. ‘It is not just the high quality of the regulatory environment in Vermont. We have longevity’experience’and the best service providers in the industry. No other state is as well staffed as Vermont with people who have seen pretty much everything in terms of captive insurance.’
Riley and his colleagues from the PF+C Captive Insurance Group, including Group Chair Stephanie Mapes, Peter McDougall and Ben Gould, will be actively involved at the Conference.
‘Participation in the Conference is typically the highlight of the Group’s year,’says Mapes. ‘As we do every year, our attorneys will be presenting and coordinating seminars, attending various Conference functions and participating in numerous business meetings with clients and other Conference attendees.’