Archer Daniels Midland's filing with the Department of Labor puts an end to more than a year of waiting by the insurance industry for a second group to make the effort to go through a groundbreaking application process that will set a standard and clear the way for further applicants.

Mr. Wright said that the move by Decatur, Ill.-based Archer Daniels Midland Company, an agricultural processor, follows a ground-breaking application by Herndon, Va.-based Columbia Energy.

In 2000, the DOL gave approval to Columbia Energy Group to use the Vermont branch of Columbia Insurance Corp. Ltd. in Bermuda to reinsure long-term disability benefits-- ending a process that took eight months.

The Archer Daniels application, Mr. Wright said, should move through fairly quickly. "We do not have the Bermuda element here, their captive is in Vermont," Mr. Wright said. "That's a difference that I think makes it a little bit simpler."

The significance of this case, he explained, is that "if the DOL also considers this to be similar to the [Columbia Energy] case, there is an accelerated process, an expedited exemption procedure, which would allow subsequent submissions to be made on an expedited basis."

Chuck Waldron, consulting actuary in Milliman U.S.A.'s Hartford, Conn., office, said that the process, which took nearly a year for Columbia Energy, should now be much faster. After the second case, he said, the DOL is required to expedite the process to 45-90 days. "I think the Department of Labor is eager to get somebody else in there," he said.

Mr. Waldron said he also has had interest from other organizations wishing to write employee benefits through a captive, but "nobody wanted to go through the expense of trying it again." This company, he said, "is a large organization that can afford to do this and it will be worth a lot of money for them to do so."