Sajjad Alloo and Gabriel Albertson take first place with their analysis of a captive structure for Diamond Cruise Line, as all three finalist teams present at the CICA International Conference in Palm Desert.
Temple University students Sajjad Alloo and Gabriel Albertson have won first place in the 2025-2026 Captive Insurance Companies Association (CICA) College Student Essay Contest, receiving a US$2,500 prize for their paper "Capital, Retention, and Solvency Optimization for Diamond Cruise Line."
The winners are announced during the opening session of the CICA 2026 International Conference at the JW Marriott Desert Springs Resort & Spa in Palm Desert, California, on 9 March. The contest, titled "Captive Insurance Solutions for Today's Risk Management Challenges," is sponsored by Hylant Global Captive Solutions.
Second place and a US$1,500 prize goes to Elizabeth Jouini and Isabella Martinez of St. Mary's University. Third place and a US$1,000 prize goes to Noah Oachs and Zoey Bendewald of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
In addition to their cash prizes, all three finalist teams will present their essays during an education session at the conference. Their papers will be published by Captive Insurance Times and on the CICA website in April 2026.
CICA President Dan Towle says: "I continue to be impressed by the captive knowledge these students demonstrate through the essay contest process. The insight they are gaining provides a strong foundation for success across the insurance industry, and we hope this experience inspires many of them to consider a career in captive insurance."
Anne Marie Towle, CEO of Hylant Consulting, says: "As the sponsor of the CICA Student Essay Contest, we are honoured to contribute to the development of these students. This initiative aligns with Hylant's commitment to fostering education and encouraging innovation in captive insurance, and we are proud to invest in our industry's future leaders."
The winning essay addresses one of three fictional case studies offered to contestants this year. The Diamond Cruise Line scenario presents a growing cruise operator with a fleet of 10 ships, two under construction, and 15,000 employees, facing rising premiums and limited coverage availability across several lines including general liability, workers' compensation, builder's risk, marine, travel insurance, entertainment, weather and event cancellation, and communicable disease. Alloo and Albertson's paper analysed how a captive structure could address those exposures through capital retention and solvency optimisation.
Albertson is studying risk management and insurance at Temple, graduating in May 2026. He completed internships in Comcast's Global Risk Management department, where he analysed the company's master builder's risk programme for Epic Universe and other construction projects. He will join Chubb on their Multinational Casualty team upon graduation.
Alloo is a recent graduate of Temple's Fox School of Business, where he earned degrees in risk management and insurance and management information systems. He has worked on the carrier side at GBLI since summer 2024, beginning in data analytics and later focusing on product management and insurance software development. He also completed a client-side risk management internship with Comcast. His interests centre on captive insurance, alternative risk financing, and using claims data to inform capital and risk decisions.
Martinez is a senior at St. Mary's University double majoring in finance and risk management, and management. She recently completed a summer internship in global specialty insurance underwriting and will begin her career in risk consulting and brokerage at Marsh in New York City after graduation. She is also an active member of Gamma Iota Sigma.
Martinez is a returning finalist, having placed third in the 2024-2025 contest alongside Skilee Soto.
Her teammate Jouini is a senior at St. Mary's University in San Antonio majoring in international business with a marketing track.
Oachs completed his final semester at Wisconsin-Madison studying risk management, insurance, and finance. Originally from Rochester, Minnesota, he will join Zurich this summer as a Market Facing Underwriting Trainee on the Group Captives team in Schaumburg, Illinois.
Bendewald is a senior studying risk management and insurance at Wisconsin-Madison, where she has served as Communications Executive for the university's Risk Management and Insurance Society (RMIS) for two semesters. She interned as a Facultative Casualty Underwriter at Everest Re's Chicago office last summer. Wisconsin-Madison also claimed first place in the 2024-2025 contest, when Rachel Claire Gibson and Ella Pernsteiner took top honours.
The annual CICA Student Essay Contest invites undergraduate two-person teams from disciplines including insurance, risk management, actuarial science, finance, and business management to select from a set of case studies and develop a captive insurance solution. Essays are judged by a panel of CICA members, with no more than one team per school eligible to advance to the top three.
Winning essays will be published on the CICA website and by Captive Insurance Times in April 2026.
