Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Good afternoon, everyone. This is the Vermont House Committee on Commerce and Economic Development. It is Wednesday, 01/21/2026 at 02:25 in the afternoon, and so we're here to hear from people from our Vermont Captive Insurance Association. Ian, I'm going put you up first. Welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon.

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: Thank you for

[Ian Davis, President, Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA)]: having me. Good afternoon, everyone. Ian Davis, President of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Somebody's not muted. Julie?

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: No, I'm muted.

[Ian Davis, President, Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA)]: I may be gone now.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yep. Right. Make sense. Well,

[Ian Davis, President, Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA)]: I just want to start first by saying thank you so much for those of you who were able to join us today for our legislative day luncheon. It means so much to our membership, to the local Vermont service providers who live and work here to just see the level of engagement from our lawmakers. And I hope you know from myself personally, from the association standpoint, just how appreciative we are. We don't take this for granted. We know how incredibly busy you all are. And so to take time out of your day to be with us for lunch is really meaningful. I just want to make sure to thank you for that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you. We certainly appreciate the invitation as well.

[Ian Davis, President, Vermont Captive Insurance Association (VCIA)]: Last week, I was with you, if you recall, talking through the details of the bill this year, how it was developed, why the changes matter. And I thought I would just use the few minutes I have with you to talk more so about kind of what's new with the association. I'm new in the role, as you heard me say last week. I've been president since August 2025, so it's been about six months and figured it would be worthwhile to just kind of give you an update on what's going on at BCIA. And to put it in short would be we're really focused today on what matters most to our members. That's centered around three core pillars, the first of which we refer to as advocacy. You heard a lot about that today during the luncheon portion of our legislative day. But we're also very active at the federal level and within the National Association of Insurance Commissioners as well. And because today we are the largest trade association representing the largest domicile, we really have a responsibility to lead and not just protect and promote Vermont's captive industry, but play a role in protecting and promoting the captive industry as well. That's something that we take very seriously. It is, I think, probably the biggest role that we play in serving our membership and remains a central focus of the association today and going forward. The second would be expanding our learning and professional development opportunities outside of our annual conference. We have the largest captive insurance conference in North America. This past year brought eleven forty seven people to Burlington for four days. So it is a very significant kind of economic driver for that period of time, which the conference is occurring. But what we hear from our members more often than not is that, how can we replicate the conference at other periods in time throughout the year? And so we're not just looking to increase volume of educational programming that we offer, but also the way in which it's delivered, some different formats. We're doing, for example, some educational content this year that's really geared around new and emerging professionals in the captive industry. It's a way in which we as an association are trying to support the next generation of captive insurance leaders. When you've been around for forty years, there's a lot of retirements these days in the captive industry, and we want to make sure that there's that kind of next generation of leadership that's living and working here in Vermont and supporting this industry. You'll hear from my colleague, Brittany Nevins, who's with the Department of Economic Development in just a moment about some other efforts that are underway. But it is a challenge, quite frankly, that we've known about for a long time and not a lot of people going into insurance or accounting. How can we do our part to make sure that Vermont remains really this community of excellence that it has been for so long. And then lastly, I'll just mention briefly, but we are very focused on, again, ways in which we can be engaging with our membership outside of the annual conference. And one of the hallmarks of VCIA has long been something that's called a VCIA roadshow, which is where we take the Department of Economic Development, the Department of Financial Regulation and VCIA, We go around the country to different markets where captive activity is growing and try and spread the word of captive insurance and, most of all, spread the word about Vermont. We are kind of reimagining what that looks like. We've planted a seed in Chicago and Philadelphia to start, but think of it as a kind of alumni chapter framework. So we're gonna have sustained presence in these key markets where we're seeing captive activity coming from, obviously being that these are major metropolitan areas that it's no surprise that there's a lot of companies who maybe are exploring captive insurance. We want to make sure that it's not just there's a concentration of VCIA members who are there, but really it's trying to reach new audiences and bring VCIA to where these companies are located and have an ongoing presence in those markets. That's really today the next few years of what our focus is. I mentioned the conference, and I would just underscore that it remains our most significant event that we do for the membership and for the industry, and in some ways for Vermont every year. And we are very focused on making sure that it remains the premier educational and networking event for years to come. So that's definitely a priority as well. More than anything, I just want to once again thank all of you sincerely for your continued support. I'm so excited that you're now going to have the opportunity to hear from one of our members, Julie Bourdeaux, who is not just a member of BCIA, but she also serves on the board, the association as well, and has a really wonderful story to tell. So happy to answer any questions or can do that later if there are any.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you, Rita. Thank you.

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: Thank you. You. Good afternoon, everyone. If you don't mind, I'm gonna share my presentation. First of my name is Julie Bordeaux, and I'm the president and CEO of PCH Mutual. And I did want to say, first of all, that I am both honored and humbled to be with you. I have the utmost respect and admiration for your public service. I know how important it is. So thank you very much, and thank you for having me here in Vermont. This is just a bit of background on myself. It's not about me. It's really about PCH Mutual. But the important thing to tell you, about PCH is that we were formed in 2004 when there was really, the inability for folks in the nonmedical residential care space to get affordable insurance. And that's really what the Liability Risk Retention Act is all about. That's why they created risk retention groups. Because I like to say as a lawyer, I like to say it's legislation that worked. It did exactly what it was supposed to do. And, as I think you well know, small businesses are the backbone of this country. They're the biggest employer. And, our members are generally small, six to 10 bed facilities, care facilities serving vulnerable adults in The United States. So we've grown to over 4,300 members. They're really family owned, community based facilities. They are dedicated to folks who cannot care for themselves. Point of fact, today, that's a really important business. We are just a couple of years away from the baby boomers being to the point where in America, there's more people 65 than 18. And so care is gonna be really important. So the idea that we have this member owned entity is enabling these business owners, these small business owners, to do their job caring for vulnerable adults is an important thing. And our core mission is serving those who serve others. And, you know, the person we really care about is the residents as well. And one of the things that we do in our work is we embrace innovation, technology, and fresh approaches to these things. We have eight free member benefit resources, that are very substantive, things like free documentation software so that our members can document the care of, their residents and make sure that, that information is passed along to the other caregivers and following, regulation around it and things like that. That's just one of many of the things that we offer, our members. And it's very important to us. Big moment for us and a big moment for me because I started in 2016 as the president and CEO, and the first act was to redomicile to Vermont. We were looking for a place that had substantive experience, folks who were not your stereotypical regulators, who understood our industry and understood our challenges, and we absolutely found it in Vermont. I think of culturally, we're like a desert as far as community is concerned, and Vermont is absolutely a community. Vermont is water in the desert of that in this country. Absolutely. And we have found that in every aspect of our dealings with Vermont. From my nervous rookie going to the VCIA conference that Ian was talking about, it's very overwhelming. But not when you go to Vermont. You feel like you are a welcome person here. Everybody seems like they're the kindest person that you've ever interacted. They're interested in you. And then I had to have an interview to see if we were a match. Would would Vermont like us? Would we like them? I remember Dave Provost and Sandy Biegelstone. I think Dan Dan might have been there as well, and it was wonderful. It was a real dialogue. It didn't ever feel adversarial. It felt like these people have something that we need and we can bring something to the state as well. So it felt very mutually beneficial. We were very attractive in terms of the depth of experience. And then I think of everybody we encountered were long standing employees of the state of Vermont. That said something about the state and the DFR. That said something about leadership, right, that you engender that, that quality of people focused on excellence, authenticity, and delivering service. And to typify that, our first board meeting, we're sitting in Burlington, some of my members are those caregivers. And Dave Provost, the deputy commissioner, walks in. And they all got up. One of them straightened his tie. There was just this sense of mutual respect, and he came in and he thanked us for being there, and we had a dialogue about some of the things we were concerned about. And he delivered the news that, guess what? You had heard us talking about how we needed some flexibility in our investment policies and the restrictions on them. And the department had delivered that news, you'd formulated legislation, and you passed it. So he told, now you've got a little more flexibility. You can rewrite your investment policy. You can do things a little differently. And the idea that a person, let alone a government, hears you, sees you, and acts in response to it is a tremendous thing. You talk about rich and deep relationships, that's what that's all about. And that's the way you feel as a Vermont domiciled company. So that comes from you, and we have a lot of gratitude for that. We've had many open discussions offering solutions. I wanted to show you that this is what the company looks like. So the white line is when we were in DC, and before that, and then this is Vermont. And it's just up, measured growth, up, up and up. And there are a lot of things to do with that, but Vermont has a lot to do with that. And you are our partners in our success, from 3,000,000 when I started to 15,000,000 today, and a surplus that's, more than it's it's quadruple. So those are wonderful numbers for us. But going to the idea that you're not a typical regulatory environment, you think of tunnel vision bureaucrats sitting there, not thinking about anything strategically. And I think of you, and I think of you have binoculars. You're on the horizon saying, what's next? Could be the problem? And I know that that's what comes through with our interactions with the DFR as well. What are the problems? What's next? And we absolutely have seen that. I tell this story because Ian is here and he was at the Department of Economic Development when Bitcoin and the blockchain were all coming up. It was, What is that? And everybody was afraid of it, and What's going on? But Ian was made the head of researching and understanding what that was and how that could serve the industry. And from my seat, that says, wow, you really are forward looking. Some people didn't know what the blockchain was, and the state of Vermont is already trying to figure out how it can benefit the industry. And so whenever we see that, we know we're in the right place. Don't care if you're the cheapest. Don't care if you're permissive. The strict, that works for me. We have had three examinations while I've been in my seat. And every one of them, we become better as a result of them. It was a collaboration. It was an engagement where we learned things we didn't realize were potential hotspots, difficulties. We were made better. It was not adversarial. I could tell you the name of everybody on the team from my last exam. Brianne, Kara, Jen, Stacy. And they were there doing what they needed to do all in a timely fashion, consummate professionals, authentic people to deal with. That's the glue. That's what keeps people coming back and saying, Not no amount of money, but you know what I mean. I'm staying here. So those things I think we really substantively benefited and absolutely appreciate. You as leaders in the state of Vermont, that's due to you and the other folks at the department. So I wanted to give you just a couple of more examples of how we benefited from Vermont, very concrete ones. I talked about the legislative changes. Also a few years ago, I don't know if you remember when everybody's investment portfolios cratered. The pandemic was ending and it all cratered. And so we were looking at corrective action. We were looking at our RBC scores, going to put us in corrective action territory. And I felt totally comfortable going to Christine and Sandy, the Chiefs at the time, and saying, It's not going to be good. I just want you to be aware of this. And they said, Oh my gosh, we absolutely know. We know, we know, but you're going be in corrective action. Of course we are, that's the rules. But we know you're going to get out of it. We know this is You have all the other markers of health and you're going to roll out of this. And we did. The next cycle, we absolutely did. But being able to have that dialogue and the depth of understanding instead of just, Oh, you're in bad territory. We don't know what's going to happen to you, but good luck. And then the final example for me is we have some ancillary coverages. So we have evacuation coverage. As you can imagine, in small care facilities, you want to encourage your folks to evacuate their residents when there's an extreme event, a climate event, a hurricane, fire, floods, electrical outage. So we realized, though, with the frequency increasing, that we might have a situation where that $10,000 coverage would put us in a very high loss situation if we were in a very concentrated market. And so I put together a plan to basically aggregate that coverage because we couldn't reinsure it. We explored that. And I worked with lawyers and we wrote an aspect of our policy that basically aggregated the coverage and allowed folks, If we had a bunch of claims, then you were all going to split this pot. And I presented that to the department and they said, Wow, we've never seen this before, but this looks like a really viable solution. And did their study and came back and said, Yeah, this is a good solution. And we've enacted it one time, it worked very well. So to have that kind of collaboration with the state of Vermont is a tremendous advantage. And so we've seen really concrete examples for us and for the health of our company. So we really appreciate that. The last thing is really, it's a mutual relationship. So we kind of, I think you know, but I just wanted to highlight, we retain Vermont service providers. We have delightedly to have board events here. I love spending a week in August in Vermont. It's one of my favorite weeks. If I can see the sun set on Lake Champlain, it's a good day. And we have the community. I'm a leader in the Chicago chapter that Ian just referenced, and we're really looking forward to being able to build the community there, get even richer and deeper relationships and help each other and serve the VCIA that's been doing a great job on its members' behalf. And finally, I did lobby back right before the pandemic, actually. I went to Washington with a group of folks lobbying on behalf of the industry, which was a wonderful full circle moment for me. My mom was a lobbyist in Michigan. She worked for health care providers lobbying. Not the kind that got the good seats at the Bulls or the Pistons, but the kind that actually educated people and stuff like that. That was my mom. So it was

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: a full circle moment.

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: It was really an eye opening experience, but happy to do those kinds of things on behalf of the industry and on behalf of the state of Vermont. So that is it for my presentation. Again, so much gratitude for, helping us in our success. And, if you have any questions, you would like to answer them. Thank you. Thank you very much so much. Good to have it's wonderful to be here. Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It's always nice to hear when we're doing something right. Yes, for sure. Gotta feel it

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: on the firing lines a lot.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Hi,

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: everyone. It's nice to see you all again. I am Brittany Nevins, and I am the Captive Insurance Economic Development Director with the State of Vermont. I'm in the Department of Economic Development in the Agency of Commerce and Community Development. And just wanted to do a quick check on how much time we have before I start.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Probably about ten minutes.

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: Okay. Great. So, yeah, it was great to see many many of you today at lunch. I really appreciate you taking the time. This, I think, is my fifth legislative session. So I just for time, I decided not to do a presentation and just have some talking points to share with you all. So I also have my colleagues in the room from the Department of Financial Regulation as well. So I know you got an update a little bit from them recently, but the captive bill I guess that that's now onwards, which is great. Thank you for that. But if you ever have questions for either departments, don't hesitate to reach out. Early this morning, we actually released our year end data for 2025. And we had 51 new captives licensed last year, which is our third highest year of growth in our forty five year history, which is amazing. And the past five years have been in our top ten years of growth. So we are on a really great trajectory, and we have a really successful robust industry here in Vermont. Our top industries were real estate, manufacturing, and health care. And it's estimated, not a final number, but that the captive insurance premium tax will bring in about $35,000,000 in tax revenue, at least from this past year. And as you may know, those funds fully fund the captive insurance division, my role, the marketing efforts that we do, and that's just a small percentage. And then the vast majority of that money goes to the general fund to support Vermont's most essential programs. And I think I mentioned that I do the marketing and business recruitment, but my brain is a little foggy. But just in case, I am specifically focusing on that part of it, so not on the regulatory side. So this past year, we won pretty much every award that you could win again, but notably we won International Domicile of the Year award again for the fourth consecutive year. So that's an award that is voted on by the industry and given out in Luxembourg. So pretty proud of that. We have about 90 companies now with international ownership and just increasing interest from companies from around the world. So our leadership really is really becoming more well known across the world. We had some changes, as you are aware, in leadership virtually. We have a new commissioner in the Department of Economic Development. Christine Brown is the acting deputy commissioner. And with Ian as the new president, we've had a lot of change. But Vermont really continues to be a stable leader with a deep bench of expertise. And I think a really great example of that is that the leadership in the captive insurance division, every one of those people have been in the department for at least twenty five years. So that is really impressive. And then beyond those people, people have been there for many, many years. So Vermont is in a really good position for continued stable leadership. You heard recently from Nick Grimley, our deputy commissioner from of the Economic Development Department on the Convention Center Task Force. So really excited about the progress on that, that as you may or may not know, was driven out of really the captive insurance industry expressing a need for a new convention center. Being the largest conference held in Vermont, the current spaces are becoming too tight. And so that's a really important effort for continued success in the captive insurance industry. We are competing against Nashville, Charleston, a lot of cities that have incredible convention centers. Last year, you may remember I started to collect data to better understand Vermont's captive insurance workforce. And essentially, the data I collected this past year is showing similar trends, if not worsening trends slightly. So we have over 500 confirmed jobs now that are supporting Vermont's captive insurance industry, which is up by about 20 jobs from the prior year, which is really showing that our growth in licensure is being matched by a workforce growth, which is something you want to see, but that growth continues to not be filled by Vermonters generally. So we saw a decrease in about four and a half positions being filled by Vermonters. So what that really shows is that service providers in the region are not finding that skilled talent here in Vermont to fill those jobs, and that is putting an increased strain on them. That equates to about four out of every 10 jobs that are available for Vermonters are actually being filled by Vermonters, and those jobs pay on average about $100,000 a year at this point. So just wanted you to be aware of that. We are working closely with local colleges and universities. I think that strain is particularly being felt because of the decrease in accounting programs in the state of Vermont. And so now those seniors that were in those accounting programs are graduated, and there are no more students in those programs. So we have a program with the that we're working with we're in partnership with the association called the Vermont Captive Insurance Emerging Leaders Initiative. So we continue to do that, and we're getting in touch with more and more students, more scholarships to go to the conference. And we've had about five at least students and young professionals enter into the industry because of that initiative. So we're making good progress, but have a long way to go. It's something that we want to continue to really focus on and hopefully build curriculum, not just getting in front of students, but an actual captive insurance course or risk management program in a local school would be really essential for our future. So we are continuing to work on that.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Any conversations with Department of Labor and also with our career centers and maybe Vermont State College System?

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: Yes. A little bit. Admittedly, my contact at Vermont State University, they moved out of state. So the person that was really working hard on the effort moved away. So we have to kind of restart there. The Department of Labor, we have talked with them a bit, mostly from a data standpoint. So it would be good to talk with them more. We there's not a captive insurance NAICS code, so it's difficult to track captive insurance jobs with the Department of Labor.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: It can also help you, you know, if you're looking at certifications. Yeah. Higher degrees. They can help you with registered apprenticeships and pre apprenticeships. Also, some of businesses that are in Vermont that are supporting the captive insurance industry. Do they know about the Green Mountain Retention Program that is at the University of Vermont at the Office of Engagement? So seniors that are graduating from any university in the state or any college in the state can apply for a two year loan forgiveness scholarship to stay in Vermont. So they're required to stay in Vermont for two years. They get $5,000 So that could help as a recruiting tool for some of the businesses as well.

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: Yeah, that's really good to know. Thank you for mentioning that. We have made a lot of inroads with the local colleges, but it's like peeling back layers. It's really difficult to get in front of the people that really where the rubber meets the road. So the last thing I'll just mention is that we are really focusing on our efforts in The UK from a marketing perspective because there's increasing domiciles being created there. So, that's just something different, but we're continuing with the same marketing efforts essentially because they are proven to be successful. So that's my quick update, but can always come back in. I think the bell means something. So

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Of course. But,

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: yeah, if there's not time for questions, I'm available over email, or I can come back in at any point.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you very much.

[Brittany Nevins, Captive Insurance Economic Development Director, State of Vermont]: Thank you.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Thank you all for joining us this afternoon. Thank you for the invitation for lunch. You. Appreciate it. Committee, we're on the floor in five minutes. We don't see much going on in the floors today. The reason being to be picking up 06:48 to get right after the floor. And then that will be on notice tomorrow, so it will be up for action on Friday or Tuesday. What one more day is that? Tomorrow? Tomorrow, we start off at nine on any K Day, Northeast Kingdom Day, a number of people coming from The Kingdom to talk to us. They're coming in here. Also, we'll be hearing from the Vermont Food Bank. And then we have Secretary Saunders in at ten from ten to twelve talking to us about their vision for CTE. So that would be an interesting conversation. Commissioner Smith will also be joining. We're going to have a little mix of CTE and discussion about adult CTE. What do we have to know?

[Julie Bordeaux, President & CEO, PCH Mutual]: About adult learning.

[Michael Marcotte (Chair)]: Yeah, so the adult education and literacy funding report. Remember last year, had those discussions with all the adult learning centers in the state, they were having some issues with how AOE changed some of the formula. So we asked for a report. AOE will begin to give us that report, and also we'll be hearing from three of the four adult learning centers around the state. 02:00 is our security briefing, so we need to all need to be here for that. And then we have the four at three. So that's tomorrow. Any question? Okay. We can go off live. That's a good one.