On the 1st April I had the great privilege of doing something I love doing – speaking at a local insurance institute conference. The Insurance Institute of Kent was kind enough to invite me to speak to their members about my ambition for the Insurance Museum. The organiser of the Event, Ray Johnson, is someone I’ve known for 35 years and is a strong supporter of the Insurance Museum. So, it was a no brainer for me to accept his invitation.
I began by explaining why at the tender age of 82 and having retired from full time employment 25 years ago I am still so passionate about engaging with young people to explain what wonderful careers there are in Insurance and Financial Services. I told them that I was fed up listening to chief executives complaining about the difficulty they have in attracting young talent to think of Insurance as a worthwhile career. So, what are they doing about it? Precious little it seems to me.
In a recent Worshipful Company of Insurers ‘Special Event’ entitled “The talent pipeline – how can we attract more young people into insurance?” it was widely accepted that youngsters know very little about insurance and that the very word “Insurance” equates to boring. The Chairman of the meeting suggested another reason – that the sector is too fragmented, and we do not speak with one voice.
I argued that there is nowhere for young people to go to learn about insurance and the Insurance Museum could be that place. We plan to ‘tell the story of the global insurance market, past, present and future.’
The principal objective of Insurance Museum is to make Insurance a career of choice, rather than a career of chance. I asked the Kent Institute audience how many had chosen insurance as a career and not a single hand went up.
I’m an East End kid growing up in London after WW2. I played on the many bomb sites in and around the City of London. Careers were not something I worried about then.
I justified my passion for youth now by explaining how bad a student I was at school. I had to stay on at my secondary school an extra year to get 5 ‘O’ levels. The thought of university was completely out of the question, no university would accept me! So, when the Youth Employment Officer asked what do you want to do? I said I had no idea. I’d thought about accountancy but that involved exams, and I was no good at exams. He ruffled his papers and said, ‘what about insurance?’ I said, ‘I don’t know anything about insurance, but I’ll give it a go’.
I bought myself a pinstripe suit from a tailor in Fleet Street, passed the interview and took the job I was offered. After a short while in the job people began asking me if I was going to take the exams. ‘What exams?’ I asked, ‘nobody mentioned exams in the interview!’
I then realised that to get on in the insurance business it would be beneficial to take the exams and get some letters behind my name. Notwithstanding a couple of failures along the way, 8 years after joining the profession (I prefer profession to industry!) I had FCII after my name. The parts of the CII exams I enjoyed most were the parts dealing with legal liabilities. Especially the Law of Torts, which is really a lot of short stories, e.g. Carlill V Carbolic Smoke Ball Company (remember that?) I realised that my Fellowship was seen by universities as equivalent to a degree, so I signed up with University College London as an external student studying Law. 5 years later I had LLB behind my name. I began to describe myself as a slow learner – a late developer.
Then my career took off and one of my great memories relates to my time as President of the Insurance Institute of London. Unlike many local institutes, London did not have an annual dinner. They had an annual lunch at London’s Mansion House with all the great and the good of the London Market present. Sat in the chair on the top table I remember looking around the Egyptian Hall with the Lord Mayor on my right and my guest speaker Lord Woolf on my left thinking ‘this ain’t bad for an East End kid with 5’O’ levels!’
A few short years later I led a delegation of speakers to Beijing to a 2-day conference for the staff of the Chinese Regulatory Authority Commission.
I suggested to the Kent Institute members that we in the business are the best ambassadors the business can have. It is our duty to promote the business as much as we can whenever we can. Mentoring is a great way of doing that. My oldest mentee was a 15-year-old schoolboy in Shadwell, East London when I first met him. 20 years later he is a rising star at Marsh. He makes me feel very proud.
The message I give to all the young people I talk to is simply this – if I, a slow learner – late developer with only 5 ‘O’ levels, can do it so can you.’ My burning desire is to give the current crop of East End Kids the same opportunities as I had and to tell them that my career was everything but boring!
