Standards · Survey · Commentary
A practitioner journal for captive insurance compliance — model calendars, working standards, and an annual survey of how this industry actually runs. Everything cited to primary authority, because in this field an uncited answer is a liability.
The §831(b) premium cap is an indexed parameter — $2.9 million for taxable years beginning in 2026 per Rev. Proc. 2025-32 — yet much of the industry's own literature still quotes stale figures. On treating tax limits as data with effective dates, not numbers in a brochure.
831(b) Read →Every recurring obligation — VCAR, premium tax, audit, actuarial opinion, renewal, governance — assembled from 8 V.S.A. chapter 141 and Regulation C-81-2, with the citation beside every date and the fiscal-year election's knock-on effects mapped.
Standards Read →Vermont and Missouri are drafted from common ancestors and read nearly identically — with different dates and different numbers. The annual report, the premium tax chain, capital minimums, and the actuarial opinion, compared line by line with the citation beside every difference.
Doctrine Read →The Vermont calendar's companion, from §§ 379.1300–.1350 and 20 CSR 200-20: the four-step premium tax chain across two agencies, capital minimums, the actuarial opinion embedded in the audit, and the fee credit worth $7,500 a year.
Standards Read →A captive granted fiscal-year reporting acquires a second filing rather than relocating the first, because the premium tax base never left the calendar year. Vermont and Missouri compared, and the three questions to ask whenever an election is granted.
Doctrine Read →Statute, then regulation, then form, then agency practice — the four tiers of a compliance obligation, in the order to read them and what to do when they disagree. Worked example on Vermont's captive premium tax return (§ 6014 vs. Form CPT-635's weekend roll).
Doctrine Read →The annual $7,500 license renewal fee and the $7,500 premium tax minimum are the same number for a reason. § 379.1302.3(4) makes the fee creditable against § 379.1326 premium tax, with unused amounts carried five years. Cash-flow math and the reason most calendars lose it.
Doctrine Read →An affirmative case for the properly structured small captive — premium-cap discipline, both diversification prongs, loss-ratio awareness, and the documentation habits that make an examination boring.
Commentary in preparation