In its basic form, a captive insurance company is typically an insurance company established and owned by one or more non-insurance organizations to underwrite the risk(s) of their owner(s). A captive can be owned by a single entity, by a number of unrelated companies from a particular industry (a homogeneous group captive), by a number of unrelated companies from different industries (a heterogeneous group captive) or by a trade or industry associations (an association captive) to insure the risks of the group owners or association.