2015 Bermuda:Re/insurance+ILS 9


is a first”. I subsequently found out that the “first” was that they’d never hired a woman into their executive training programme.


I received a telegram on St Patrick’s Day offering me a spot in the programme, at $7,200 per year. When I phoned my uncle to let him know, he asked the name of the company, and when he heard it was Atlantic, he said: “take it”. He didn’t want to know salary or position— if it was Atlantic I’d get training to do anything.


The only position I was offered in the federal government was with


the Department of Housing and Urban Development in New York, at a lower salary, so not at all what I wanted.


Taking the plunge


On June 9, 1969 I began my career at Atlantic, where I was assigned to underwriting administration for the summer. I came from a small women’s college—the College of Notre Dame of Maryland—and I was suddenly in a world where almost all the professionals were men who had never dealt with women in a professional position.


The formal training programme commenced in September with morning classes at the College of Insurance and company classes every afternoon covering all aspects of the company: property, casualty, marine, claims, accounting, reinsurance and loss control engineering. I vividly remember six weeks spent with the loss control engineering department. Picture me inspecting schools, and climbing up the sides of ships in dry dock; standing in the pouring rain at the Sea-Land cargo terminal in New Jersey watching containers being loaded on to ships.


The culmination of the training programme was a speech to be


given to all of the officers of the company. I was assigned ‘females in insurance’. Fortunately I’d been forced to take public speaking by my college department head. In preparing my speech, the only woman who anyone could direct me to was the secretary to the chairman—a lovely woman, but not what I aspired to be in an insurance career.


The only woman officer in Atlantic at that time handled state and industry relations. She refused to sign her letters with her name, just used her first initial and surname, as showing a woman’s name would offend clients and regulators.


My breakout moment came about 18 months later when the head


of ceded reinsurance needed a new supervisor for the reinsurance department. He felt that people preparing for their Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) designation were interested in their careers. Since I was studying for my CPCU law exam, I was offered the opportunity to move into reinsurance. It was amazing how many people questioned why I would want to be a supervisor, and/or why I would want to move into this “dull area”.


Don Chadwick, then vice-president of reinsurance, a true gentleman, promised me I would never have a dull day in reinsurance. That’s been more than proved. We embarked on a five-year learning stint prior


to his retirement, whereby he tried to teach me everything he knew about property, casualty and marine insurance and reinsurance. He’d been around for the founding of the Cargo War Risk Reinsurance Exchange and the American Hull Insurance Syndicate, both founded to keep goods moving through world wars.


We worked with war reparation files, and had secret files for ship


movements for Post Exchange supplies during the Vietnam War. Meanwhile, as our property exposures were growing, we were regularly looking to expand our property cat programme. Asbestos was suddenly a topic with which we all became familiar. Extra- contractual obligation (ECO) and excess of policy limits (XPL) clauses were introduced into contracts.


I was named assistant manager of reinsurance in July 1973, and in


1974, was named assistant secretary reinsurance. I didn’t know until a few years later that I’d been the youngest person to have been named an officer in the company—and that it had become a goal of others to become an officer at a younger age than I was. I loved every aspect of that job, from dealing with everyone from the mailroom to the chairman, ultimately managing a $40 million buying operation.


At that time, there was limited interaction between reinsurers and primary companies. The direct markets would come to visit, and one or two Lloyd’s leads would come annually, but I didn’t even know my lead reinsurers who were six blocks away in downtown New York. My almost exclusive relationships outside of Atlantic were through our broker, Guy Carpenter, and with our direct writer reinsurers General Re, North American Re and American Re.


An unusual sight


The working and social environment for women then was very different, and my being involved certainly caused hassles for our reinsurers and brokers. A well known insurance/reinsurance luncheon destination downtown was Massoletti’s. A great place, but they wouldn’t hang a ladies coat at lunchtime—we didn’t belong there interfering in ‘men’s’ work. When I went to work with Don and would have lunch with the fellows at Guy Carpenter, we had some awkward moments.


Clubs were the normal luncheon (and bar) destinations. Some other cherished memories were having to go up a back elevator in India House,


“The direct markets would come to visit, and one or two Lloyd’s leads would come annually, but I didn’t even know my lead reinsurers who were six blocks away.”


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