Once again, Bermuda:Re+ILS has compiled its annual Women in Hamilton special report, highlighting 11 women who stand out in the field of Bermuda re/insurance.
As in 2022, all of the women featured were nominated by their colleagues, which is the best possible endorsement.
Although several are chief executive officers or otherwise in the C-suite, these women come from a range of positions in their companies and represent different areas of industry. Some are underwriters, others are lawyers or deal with claims. There are brokers and people engaged in finance.
What becomes clear in their interviews is that they are united by a number of factors. All clearly are ambitious, for themselves and their businesses. All are self-motivated and confident in their abilities, although some admit that was not always the case.
In addition they show an awareness of the need to inspire and help others in the industry.
That need remains. People such as Kathleen Faries and Lorene Phillips who have the longest track records in the industry will attest to how much progress has been made. They are not alone in remembering how often they were the only woman in a room of usually white men.
That is a rarer occurrence now, but all agree that equality has not yet extended further to the C-suite or the boardroom.
There is also a recognition that genuine equality and diversity is not simply a matter of gender parity. The industry will also benefit from much more diversity in terms of ethnicity and social background.
This is not a flippant or shallow remark. The evidence shows that more diversity leads to better and more innovative decision making, so the idea of equality in the boardroom is not just morally right, but it makes economic sense as well.
Last year, we noted that the ideal is for a feature like Women in Hamilton to make itself redundant because the idea of high-achieving women holding an equal share of the most important jobs in the industry will itself be redundant—it will be so commonplace that no-one will consider it worthy of notice.
The field of re/insurance is not there yet, but there is reason to hope that the day when there are equal numbers of men and women at the boardroom table and in Bermuda’s C-suites is not as far off as it might seem.
