Kathleen H. Davis
Director
Attorney Kathy Davis has been at the forefront of the captive insurance industry in Vermont and the U.S. for more than 30 years, advising hundreds of captive insurance companies on formation and operational issues.
Email: kdavis@drm.com
Phone: 802-863-2375
Direct: 802-863-2375
| PHYSICAL | MAILING |
| Courthouse Plaza 199 Main Street Suite 600 Burlington, VT 05401-8339 |
PO Box 190 Burlington, VT 05402-0190 |
Practices & Industries
Pioneering captive insurance attorney.
Kathy founded our captive insurance practice, which represents more than 100 organized and operating single-parent and group captive insurance companies, as well as traditional insurers. Kathy’s insurance practice involves all matters raised by the organization, licensing, and initial capitalization of captives and other alternative risk transfer mechanisms, as well as governance issues that arise after commencement of operations. Many of Kathy’s clients are tax-exempt organizations.
Kathy also provides counsel in relation to ongoing regulatory compliance under the federal Liability Risk Retention Act of 1986, the various states’ insurance laws, and the wide variety of tax and contract issues that arise in connection with the provision and purchase of insurance and reinsurance. In this capacity, Kathy serves as general counsel to a large number of group captive insurers and maintains a general corporate and administrative practice. When she’s not working, she enjoys playing golf.
Education
Boston University School of Law, J.D.
Middlebury College, B.A.
Phillips Exeter Academy
Experience
Kathy focuses on transactional documents, including all types of policies and reinsurance agreements and termination or transfer of such agreements. Some of her most recent projects include:
- Novations of insurance agreements upon disaffiliation by a hospital within a healthcare system from a Vermont RRG to an offshore-fronted program, including associated collateral transfer.
- Transfer of a “cell” within a Vermont-sponsored captive to a new pure captive.
- Negotiation of “fronting” agreements with carriers including Old Republic, CNA, Zurich, Royal Sun Alliance, ACE.
- Conversion of an association captive to a sponsored (protected cell) captive.
- Transfer of liabilities from a dissolving captive insurer to a liquidating trust (upon sale of parent company, with all insurance liabilities excluded from the sale).
- Commutation and Release Agreements with numerous carriers when captives are ready to dissolve and liquidate.
- Loss portfolio transfer (“LPT”) agreements.
- Mergers of two captives in and out of U.S. and off-shore jurisdictions, including Vermont, Hawaii, New York, South Carolina, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands.
- Redomestications of captives from one domicile to another.
- General representation of over 100 captives, as either general counsel or domiciliary counsel.
Admissions
U.S. District Court, District of Vermont, 1982
Vermont, 1982
Memberships & Activities
Chittenden County Bar Association
Vermont Bar Association
Chairperson of the Union Mutual Fire Insurance Company
Served a six-year term on the board of directors of the National Risk Retention Association, and a past member of the Board of Directors of the Vermont Captive Insurance Association.
Accolades & Awards
Listed in Best Lawyers®, Corporate Law, 2019-2025
Kathy received the AV Preeminent® Peer Review Rating™ from Martindale-Hubbell®, the highest rating possible from one of the oldest and most prestigious lawyer-ranking organizations, and she has been recognized as one of Vermont’s top captive insurance attorneys in Chambers USA continuously since 2011.
Received, with others, the Vermont Captive Insurance Association’s 2007 Industry Service Award for “her career-long commitment to the growth and vitality of the captive insurance industry within the state of Vermont.”
Community Involvement
Burlington Parks Foundation
Vermont YWCA, former board member
Champlain Valley Crimestoppers, former board member
Presentations
Kathy often speaks on topics of interest to captive insurers, including risk retention groups, at national captive insurance conferences.
Presentations at the VCIA conferences and the NRRA conferences
Compliance Issues for Captives: State Taxation, Regulation and the Nonadmitted and Reinsurance Reform Act of 2010, DRM Webinar (12/15/2011)