Got your heart set on a job in Bermuda's insurance sector? Well, don't expect to just walk right into the post you want.

It may, however, be possible to get there step-by-step, or at least that is the approach that worked for Chris Fisher.

Mr. Fisher, senior vice president in the property department of ACE Bermuda after his latest promotion, said he started out doing “grunt work” but his willingness to work hard, study on the side for insurance designations and later, a readiness to temporarily relocate as a means of gaining career experience stood him in good stead.

Originally from Portsmouth, England, Mr. Fisher was attending St. David's University College, Wales - working towards a degree in Geography - when he signed up for a one-year exchange programme with Trent University in Peterborough, Ontario. Student exchanges are common enough, but for Mr. Fisher that decision was in a round-about way responsible for where he is today. During that year Mr. Fisher, now 35, met his then to-be bride, Bermudian Kelly (ne?e Kowalchuk).

The couple married in July, 1990 and decided to live on the Island. As a new graduate and newly-married, Mr. Fisher hit the streets looking for a job. Several months later he secured that first job, as an assistant in the motor division of local insurer BF&M.

“I basically started at the bottom. I was doing the grunt work,” he reflected.

Although Mr. Fisher, who has now been granted Bermudian status, pragmatically advises young Bermudians settled on an insurance career that they may have to work their way up the ladder, he added that hard work alone may not be enough.

Mr. Fisher, who is an Associate of the Chartered Insurance Institute (ACII), said: “The first thing I recommend is to begin taking classes and work towards getting an insurance designation.”

He added that his having the ACII designation may have been what got him in the door at ACE some years later.

“You shouldn't necessarily expect to walk directly into ACE and XL,” Mr. Fisher said, adding that there were plenty of opportunities to take insurance courses in Bermuda.

In his case, he attended courses at the Bermuda Insurance Institute - something that he was supported in by his then employer BF&M. Later he was awarded the Highland Fidelity Scholarship and went to spend several months studying at the Chartered Insurance College in Seven Oaks, Kent.

At BF&M, Mr. Fisher worked his way up to assistant manager of the non-life operations. By the spring of 1995, Mr. Fisher was ready to take his next career step - one he said he had been thinking through for a while.

“I had had an interest in moving onto the international side for some time. I approached a few companies and got invited for an interview at ACE.”

Mr. Fisher quipped that ACE - then located across the street from its current global headquarters in what is now the ACE Tempest Re building - jumped to mind as it was opposite BF&M's office.

Mr. Fisher got the job and joined ACE Bermuda that year as an assistant underwriter in the company's excess liability department.

It was an exciting time to join ACE, he said, as the next few years were to see the company make several strategic acquisitions transforming it into a global powerhouse in quick time.

The first of those buy-outs were two operations at Lloyd's of London - Ockham Worldwide and Methuen Underwriting, purchased in 1996. That same year the company bought Tempest Re (now ACE Tempest Re) followed by Cat Limited in 1998 and their largest, Cigna in 1999.

Not one to let a good opportunity go, Mr. Fisher approached management at ACE Bermuda about a year's secondment to the UK to work at Lloyd's, the venerable London insurance market.

After putting together a detailed proposal, he got the green light and headed to the UK in 1997. He was going out on a limb a little bit as it meant relocating with his wife Kelly while she was pregnant with their first child. Their daughter Paige, now ten, was born in the UK. The couple also now have a son, Jake, six.

“I agreed with Kelly that it would be for one year. That is how I sold it to her, as well as assuring her that I wanted to move but not indefinitely.”

At the time Ockham and Methuen had 12 Lloyd's Syndicates between them, with Mr. Fisher working in three of those on both the marine and non-marine sides. Now the company has streamlined those operations by grouping them as ACE Global Markets.

Back in Bermuda a year later, Mr. Fisher moved into the property side and was promoted to vice president with responsibility for various underwriting, catastrophe modelling and outwards reinsurance functions, including reinsurance for ACE Bermuda.

Two years ago ACE had Mr. Fisher on the move again with another secondment, this time to the Chicago office of ACE USA. There Mr. Fisher was regional underwriting manager in the global property office.

Mere months after returning to Bermuda, Mr. Fisher has now been promoted to senior vice president and now has responsibility for the management of ACE Bermuda's global property and first party specialty lines business.

The new job is a challenge he relishes including more of a chance to work with people than when he was strictly an underwriter.

“I enjoy this and am enjoying the management responsibility. I get on quite well with people, and it is a new challenge as when I was an underwriter my only real responsibility was for myself.”

Although Mr. Fisher had people reporting to him when he was posted to ACE USA, this position takes that responsibility to a greater level.

Despite the long hours - Mr. Fisher admits it is a long day with being in the office as early as 7.30 a.m. until after 6 p.m. each night - Mr. Fisher said there were few dull days.

“Some people think insurance must be boring but on the property side it can be pretty exciting. Everyday you don't know what could happen. There could be an earthquake, a blackout, a hurricane... and then we are in action looking at if we have any exposure to the event.”

Mr. Fisher said ACE Bermuda wasn't impacted by the strongest hurricane to hit the US this year, Isabel.

“Isabel was not something that really would have touched us,” he said, adding that the company was writing at the excess level, typically with attachment points starting between $20 million and $25 million.

“An event would have to be fairly large to hit us.”

Happy where he is, Mr. Fisher predicted that he would stay put in his new position for at least a few year.

“There is scope in this position, and I want to do it for a few years at least. But that is bearing in mind that I am serving at the company's pleasure,” he said.