2015 10 Bermuda:Re/insurance+ILS
or everyone having to eat in the Ladies Dining Room at different clubs, just because I was there. The best was probably being kicked out of the University Club lobby at cocktails with our president and guests from a Japanese insurance company. Or the time that our marketing rep from a direct writer, who had finally been coerced to include me, toasted me with “this is the first time I’ve had a lady reinsurance man to lunch”.
As the years passed, I enjoyed what I was doing, but two good friends set out to show me that the underwriting side would be more interesting and rewarding. Hence I was made aware of the opportunity to join St Paul Re just after they had acquired the Excess Casualty Reinsurance Association (ECRA) pool.
This was before the days of any modelling or any pricing tools. At times deals would literally be done “on the backs of envelopes” or “on napkins over lunch”. I recall in later years when the first “black box” was being developed for proportional business at St Paul Re—the beginning of analytical tools for us.
Carving a path
I began to be involved with fellow employees’ education, developing a tuition assistance plan to help people with obtaining professional designations and degrees, and mentoring employees as they went through their exams. That brought me to be on the Brokers & Reinsurance Markets Association (BRMA) education committee which developed the ARe designation with the Insurance Institute. Employees’ education and development became a career-long interest.
As St Paul management became more involved in the reinsurance operations, I had the opportunity to work with Jim White, Jim Duffy and Mike Schell. I owe so much to all these people over the years— the opportunity to meet clients throughout the US and Canada, to grow into a role handling significant accounts, participating in setting business plans in place, surviving Andrew, working on a re-engineering project, taking on new responsibilities.
After the experience of 9/11, and with new St Paul management, it
was decided that the only way forward was to do an initial public offering (IPO) and to take the reinsurance operation public, ultimately forming Platinum Re. While the end result wasn’t positive for me at the time, the process of going through the IPO was certainly challenging and rewarding—especially marketing to customers to convince them to keep business with us while we went through the transition.
“I subsequently found out that the ‘first’ was that they’d never
hired a woman into their executive training programme.”
In November 2005, I joined Max Re and have been so fortunate on
many levels, personally as well as professionally, to be associated with Max, then Alterra, and now Markel over the past 10 years.
It’s been wonderful to see people who began as trainees, and who
are now in leadership positions in their organisations. I take pride in knowing that most people who were on teams that I led moved to better positions either in or outside the company. ■
AILA IMAGES /
SHUTTERSTOCK.COM
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