Mother of three wins BIMA scholarship

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A Bermudian mother of three who works full time for a captive management firm on the Island is this year’s recipient of the Bermuda Insurance Management Association’s (BIMA) ACI Scholarship.

Desirae Simons was awarded a cheque for $4,350 at yesterday’s Bermuda Captives Conference at the Fairmont Southampton Hotel.

The money will pay for courses and books at the International Center for Captive Insurance Education (ICCIE) where Ms Simons will work online toward an Associate in Captive Insurance (ACI).

“The International Centre for Captive Education opened its doors in 2004 and since that time, it’s been offering online courses and webinars that are part of the captive industry’s professional designation, the Associate of Captive Insurance. Since that time, we’ve had about 900 participants in the ACI programme coming from about two dozen countries all over the world including Bermuda,” said Mitch Cantor, Executive Director of the ICCIE.

“We had a number of applications this year one stood out for us especially. Desirae Simons works as an accounts associate at Dyna Management Services. We were particularly impressed with the application and the comments that came with it. This is clearly someone who is very keen to move on within the captive industry,” said BIMA president Lawrence Bird.

Typically, BIMA reads through all the applications and then interviews the applicants, creating a “shortlist” before selecting the scholarship winner. But this year, there was apparently no need for interviews because the application from Ms Simons stood out from the rest.

“I’m a wife with three children and I have a degree in business management, so going back to school at this point is … it’s a lot. So I wanted to apply for it because I wanted to get some designation,” Ms Simons said. “Captive insurance seemed very interesting to me. I’m hoping to gain a more in-depth understanding of captive management and to expand and do more challenging things at my job — maybe get more into the risk management side of it.”

Ms Simons, who worked in hedge funds before getting into the captive industry a little over a year ago, says she’s thankful for the opportunity to continue her education

“I just want to thank God for giving me this opportunity and my boss, Terrance Power, who is wonderful and so supportive.”

Asked when a busy, working mother of three would have time to study, Ms Simons just smiled and said, “Late nights, early mornings, weekends. My husband’s very supportive, so I’m really excited.”

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