New research from Willis Towers Watson says many employers are looking to captive insurance in order to mitigate costs and analyze claim data. (Photo: iStock)

Employers are increasingly turning to captive insurance as more than just a means to cut their bills for employee benefits.

That's according to a study from Willis Towers Watson, which found that while the primary driver for nearly half (44%) of companies with employee benefits in their captive is to control and improve their claim data to help with ongoing cost management — up from a quarter (24%) in last year's study — the percentage of companies that cited cost savings as the main driver actually fell, from two-thirds (67%) in 2015 to 44% in 2016. (Typically a captive is a licensed insurance carrier created from a parent company, which insures to reduce the risk exposure of vendors or others that have a busines relationship with the parent company.)