2015 8 Bermuda:Re/insurance+ILS


Reflections on a career Women in Hamilton


Following 50+ years of working in the re/insurance industry, Cathryn Curia, managing director, US property reinsurance, Markel Global Reinsurance, looks back on her phenomenal career as a woman in a man’s market.


M


y objective after college, being an econ/political science major, was to obtain a government job in Washington. My parents, however, pushed me for a backup plan. So I attended a New York Chamber of


Commerce career symposium at Christmas break of my senior year.


At the symposium, you could request 10 interviews. I’d asked for three banks, three stock broking firms and three department stores. I had one blank left, so I went through the book of companies in alphabetical order, and requested an interview with Atlantic Mutual insurance company.


After a long day of unpleasant interviews with banks and stockbroking firms, I met with Atlantic’s HR director. He was intrigued that I’d completed a computer course (keep in mind this was 1968), and that I knew what an underwriter was (I’d learned that from my uncle the night before the interview). The HR director sold me on how integral insurance was to the economy and everyone’s life.


When I got home, my father was now really concerned. He probably thought insurance was even worse than government; that I would be selling life insurance door to door.


Atlantic asked me to come up to the New York home office several


weeks later for a full day of interviews. The only real memory I have of that day of interviews was lunch with one of the IT people and meeting all of the top members of underwriting administration as I wound up the day. Evidently the idea of my meeting the IT person was that they thought they’d train me in insurance and that I could be a liaison to IT.


Atlantic had a whole floor of computers; all data was entered through


key punch cards. Nobody could communicate needs. And I’d done a computer course! So they figured that would be my path. When I was introduced to the senior management of commercial lines, personal lines and inland marine, each one said “this is something new”, or “this


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