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 →

What a Tweetup! Well done to those at #RIMS2011

Posted on May 5, 2011 by Mairi

RIMS (knicked from excellent Risk Management Monitor)

Well, well. Knock me over with a feather – social media has come to risk management. At the RIMS conference in Vancouver we saw a whole swathe of mega-corporates Tweeting their hearts out, expressing opionons, talking to each other and delegates.

It is normal for the press now to tweet, but the most surprising thing was the gusto with which some really embraced Twitter this year.I have to acknowledge Risk Management Monitor here – I’ve stolen one of their pictures here. They did a grand job for those of us who could not make it and kept us up to date with words and pictures.

There were some big corpoations who obviously get it, with @AonCorp and @ZurichNAnews topping my list of non-press Tweeple (twitter people). Other biggies out Tweeting their corporate messages out (and doing a very good job too) were: Continue reading →

Social Media – is it the “Green Eggs and Ham” of insurance, reinsurance and risk management professionals?

Posted on March 4, 2011 by Mairi

I do love Dr Seuss. From reading the books as a child to reading them to my own children, they really are a joy. One of my favourites is “Green Eggs and Ham”.

For those of you who have not had the fortune to read this kids book, it is the story is a tale of Sam who tries to persuade someone to eat green eggs and ham. “You do not like them. So you say. Try them! Try them! and you may. Try them and you may, I say.”

Well I do sometimes feel like Sam, trying to persuade the insurance, reinsurance and risk management world that social media is not the devil’s work and actually, believe it or not, is a really useful and effective communications tool. Sometimes I do, finally, get someone to taste and they don’t just like it, they love it. So, I urge you to take the time, log on to Facebook, Twitter, google for some blogs, pop in insurance, reinsurance or risk management into YouTube and see what is out there – there is a whole world of communication developing. Continue reading →

“I don’t believe in social media” – how the insurance and reinsurance professionals have moved on

Posted on February 25, 2011 by Mairi

I am still amazed by how many people I still come across that say they don’t “believe” in social media or social networking. But this is no religious cult. Saying you don’t believe in social media is like saying “I don’t believe in mobile phones” – silly really. It is just a new technology we can use to communicate with each other.

That said, last month I was asked to speak to a women in insurance group called TWIN in the UK about social media (and a very nice group they are too).

What struck me about this group of insurance and reinsurance professionals was how many of these very clever women were now using social media on a day-to-day basis. Almost everyone in the room was on LinkedIn, many were on Facebook and one was blogging and on Twitter. 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 →

YouTube…? In reinsurance? Twitter…? For risk managers? What is the world coming to…

Posted on June 18, 2010 by Mairi

Woo-hoo. The revolution is coming. This week we saw Airmic (RIMS for the UK) tweet up. In other industries, this may not seem such a big deal, but in the insurance and reinsurance/ risk management world, it is a mini-revolution. Big screens showed every time anyone tweeted with #AIRMIC2010 – and it really made an impact during the conference.

And at the same time the reinsurance industry started using YouTube. As I write, there have been 12,244 views of the video – which is a lot if you are not a cute kitten falling off a workspace or a child getting whacked by their brother. Called “The New Insurance Tax” it shows how people and businesses buy insurance, then this risk is offset by the insurers buying reinsurance. There is even a fan page on facebook... 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 →

More on insurance, reinsurance and social media

Posted on January 26, 2010 by Mairi

A young Cindy

As the new year starts, pr and marketing departments in the insurance and reinsurance markets are starting to keep their promise to take social media on board. Slowly but surely, the market is recognising how powerful a tool social media can be as part of a marketing or public relations campaign.

Evidence is there – Zurich has a shiny and brilliant new blog called Zurich Risk Debate headed up their equally brilliant chief economist Daniel Hofmann. Continue reading →