Women in the boardroom – and introducing 100 Women in Reinsurance Group

Posted on January 23, 2012 by Mairi

Very recently, I spoke to one industry executive who said that he did not think that men and women could ever work effectively together in the insurance industry – although plenty of women work in his global insurance business. To say I was not surprised is an understatement.

That said, in the same week, I met another CEO who is striving to have a 50/50 split of men and women in his busniess to avoid the testosterone-charged decisions being made. He says he is still a long way off, but he has a goal in mind. Continue reading →

Social Media guidelines – a freebie for insurance and reinsurance bods

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Mairi

It's Free!

Some say you don’t get something for nothing – well that is not true. Today we are feeling generous.

At rein4ce, we feel that social media should be part of the public relations (PR) offering – and we help clients get to grips with it.

And the first thing we do is issue guidelines for staff – they need to know where they stand, and management needs to draw a line in the sand to legally protect their company.

Today, below, you will find sensible social media guidelines to use in your company. This will not only help your employees know what they are and are not allowed to do, but also help you with risk management by ring-fencing your company from inappropriate behaviour from rogue staff (and it happens, I tell you).

Here below I’ve pasted a short set of rules, and a longer set of guidelines. They are based a lot on common sense, other guidelines we Continue reading →

Insurance industry gets social media – check out the Twitter use at #BIBA2011!

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Mairi

Last week UK brokers gathered at their annual event, BIBA 2011 in Manchester and for the first time in UK insurance and broker communities, social media was used fairly widely.
This follows hot on the heels of risk managers and insurers gathering in Vancouver a week earlier for RIMS 2011, which was a staggering success on Twitter.
BIBA attendees used #BIBA2011 to bookmark their tweets about the event, RIMS used #RIMS2011.
What was interesting was who was using Twitter. In Vancouver, what was most striking was the use of Twitter by BIG corporates – there is a list here in the last blog – but included Aon Corporation, FM Global, XL Capital, ACE Ltd, Zurich, Willis and Marsh. In the Manchester event, there were a lot more individuals and much of the noise came from press such as Post Magazine, Insurance Age and Insurance Times and their reporters. Continue reading →

Happy New Year Insurance and Reinsurance People! Six ways to have happy social media planning in 2011!

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Mairi

Firstly, Happy New Year to you all – may you all have a prosperous 2011.

Secondly, thanks for your support in 2010, and for reading my blog. Last year was a year when many wholesale insurers, reinsurers and service providers start to use social media. Some jumped in with both feet, while others dipped their toes and others still watched from the sidelines to admire the ripples… and see if anyone drowned in this medium that scares so many.

Results were varied. Under the sheer weight of the work needed to harness the power of LinkedIn, blogging, Facebook and Twitter successfully as a big corporate, some floundered, others lost their way and some even gave up the ghost and left their excellent work hanging in cyberspace. Some kept hacking away at the cliff-face and have made real progress in their understanding and use of the medium within the restrictions of the corporate world. Continue reading →

How to convince an executive to invest in social media? Speak his language.

Posted on December 6, 2010 by Mairi

I was just reading the blog post by Mike Wise on getting executives to “buy in” to social media – and it made me think to post up my thoughts on this here as it is something I deal with all the time.

I spend a lot of time with executives talking about social media. And I am often brought into board rooms to help the executives understand what social media is and look at it to see if it can help them in their particular field.

To get the “buy in” (I don’t like that word, but it fits the bill), I feel I need to look at it from their perspective. I take time to show them that there are good ways to use these things – and the four pillars – blogging, Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn – are simply tools that will make it easier to communicate with other people. Just like when websites came in. Or emails became the norm. Or Blackberrys took over the insurance world. Continue reading →

The risk/reward of social media in insurance and reinsurance

Posted on April 19, 2010 by Mairi

Our industry deals with risk every minute of every day. So it is a little surprising to find out how little thought has gone into the risk/reward equation for insurers and reinsurers and the use of social media.

Here I’ll look at the most common risks associated with using social media in insurance and reinsurance. Continue reading →

Who to follow: insurance and reinsurance businesses in social media

Posted on April 8, 2010 by Mairi

Happy Easter, one and all. After a few days off, I’m back at work, ploughing through my to-do list, which includes writing this blog following the Easter break.

I was going to look at the risk/rewards of social media in our world, but I will leave that harder subject for next week – and ease myself in with a short list on who to follow, look out for and, quite frankly, copy. Continue reading →

It’s not rocket science… Social Media and insurance and reinsurance

Posted on March 26, 2010 by Mairi

I had a busy week last week in Bermuda, with the excellent World Insurance Forum, a breakfast briefing on social media for international business, and helping organise, PR and co-chair Reinsurance Magazine’s Bermuda Reinsurance Club. I managed to zip around on a moped for a while, re-living my youth, but did not make it to swim with the dolphins again – next time when the wind is not so high.

The World Insurance Forum was video cast, so if you were not there, you can watch it. Some really good sessions to watch if you are stuck in an airport with an iphone and some time to spare – very modern and 2.0 of WIF to record the sessions. And there was lots of great coverage of the Bermuda Reinsurance Club both before the event (well, I am a PR person…) and after…with cover in Bernews, four stories in The Royal Gazette (the best two linked here) and The Bermuda Sun. Continue reading →