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Hall to receive Fred Reiss award

Industry honour: Brian Hall, who played a significant role in Bermuda establishing its captive insurance sector, is to receive the Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award (Photograph supplied)

Bermudian Brian Hall, who is credited with taking the island’s captive insurance industry to global relevance, will receive the third Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award at next month’s Bermuda Captive Conference.

Mr Hall is a former director and president of Johnson & Higgins. He was awarded the OBE by the Queen in 1998 for his services to the insurance industry.

He was born in Denton, near Manchester, England, in 1941, and moved to Bermuda as a youngster to join his parents. At 17 he landed a job at American International Group, before being hired by Fred Reiss as a captive account manager for International Risk Management.

The Fred Reiss award is was launched in 2016 and honours the late Mr Reiss, a pioneering Ohio engineer who conceived of the idea of “self-insurance,” by which corporations could manage their own risks through a dedicated subsidiary. Starting with American steel companies, he pursued the concept in Bermuda, launching the first captive in 1962. The sector recorded exponential growth over the next five decades, distinguishing Bermuda as the world captive leader and fuelling the foundation of the island’s entire insurance industry.

Previous winners of the award are Jill Husbands, former chairman and managing director of Marsh IAS Management Services (Bermuda), and Michael Burns, a leading Bermudian corporate lawyer.

Mr Hall is a graduate of Saltus Grammar School. He served as chairman of the Bermuda College and the Insurance Advisory Committee, as well as founder and trustee advisor of the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies. He was also founding president of the Bermuda Insurance Management Association during a notable insurance career spanning more than four decades on the island — including five years spent working directly with Mr Reiss.

Mike Parrish, chairman of the Bermuda Captive Conference, said: “Brian is a true pioneer in the island’s captive insurance industry, and his contributions to both insurance and educational organisations in Bermuda have demonstrated his long and sincere commitment to the island and generations of Bermudians who followed him into the industry. Much of the success we enjoy as a sector today can be attributed to Bermuda-based entities he led and inspired.”

Mr Hall said: “I am overwhelmed to be receiving this award and am greatly honoured to be recognised after so many years of service. I am incredibly proud of my fellow Bermudians in their success in bringing Bermuda to the forefront of the captive insurance world. I knew Fred Reiss many years ago, and I am thankful for the opportunity to have started in this business with him.”

Mr Hall now lives in Virginia He will attend the conference at the Fairmont Southampton to receive the award.

During his career he launched Inter-Ocean Management, which began running captive operations for global insurance brokerage Johnson & Higgins, for which he was named CEO and president in 1979, and later chairman. J&H Global Captive Management grew to 17 offices and 400 employees worldwide, before merging with Marsh & McLennan in 1997.

Mr Hall served as a board member for Renaissance Reinsurance and helped create Bima, today the captive sector’s primary industry organisation — an association of professional insurance managers and captive service providers that works to protect the interests of members and clients. In 2001, he received a lifetime achievement award from the Bermuda Insurance Institute.

He remains professionally connected to Bermuda through partnership with Oyster Consulting Bermuda, a company that delivers compliance and other services to financial industry clients.

The 14th Bermuda Captive Conference runs from June 11 to 13. It is expected to attract close to 800 delegates, including captive insurance owners, risk managers, captive managers, sponsors, and vendors from the US, Canada, Latin America, and the UK.

Topics that will be featured include insurtech, cyber-risk, climate change and healthcare, as well as the industry’s growing diversity around risk, products and talent.

Bermuda is the top global captive jurisdiction, home to close to nearly 740 captive insurance companies supporting primarily Fortune 500 corporations in the US and generating over $55 billion in annual gross written premiums.

For more information about the conference, contact 295-2626, info@bermudacaptive.bm or go to http://bermudacaptiveconference.com