Having no university education need not stop young people from enjoying a successful career in Bermuda's booming insurance sector.

That was the clear message from Bermudian Theresa Dunlop who spoke after receiving her joint Young Reinsurance Person of the Year award at the Fairmont Hamilton Princess on Saturday night.

At the Bermuda Insurance Institute (BII) awards, Ms Dunlop shared her award with Laurie Orchard, while Henry Keeling won the Reinsurance Person of the Year award and Brian Duperreault was presented with a Lifetime Achievement award.

Addressing an audience including many Bermuda insurance market leaders, Ms Dunlop told of how she had managed to juggle family life, motherhood, gathering professional qualifications and teaching others.

"I never attended university," Ms Dunlop, who is a senior underwriter and team manager at Oil Insurance Ltd. "I was raised in a single-parent home and we could not afford it.

"That did not discourage me and I was even more determined to position myself to take advantage of opportunities."

She added that after five years juggling her role as a wife, mother and employee,"doors began to open" in her career. At the same time she was studying at the BII and picked up her Associate in Reinsurance and her Chartered Property casualty Underwriters' designation (CPCU). And she has since started to teach insurance classes at the BII.

"I hope I can be an inspiration to other professionals," Ms Dunlop said. "My advice to young people is get qualified, work hard, have a good work ethic and have a good mentor." Her mentor over the past six years had been BII past president Elspeth Brewin, she said.

Laurie Orchard shared the Young Reinsurance Person of the Year award with Ms Dunlop. She is assistant vice-president of operations at XL Re Ltd., as well as vice-president of the BII and chairs the BII Education Committee.

Ms Orchard stressed the importance of the BII's educational programmes and said that teaching to help others advance their careers had been just as rewarding as the success she had achieved.

"We're all part of an incredible market in Bermuda and we're laying the groundwork that will pave the way for the next generation to ensure prosperity for years to come," she said.

Mr. Keeling, who is chief operating officer of XL Capital Ltd., flew in from Beijing to attend the awards and said he was honoured to be named Reinsurance Person of the Year.

He recalled starting his Bermuda career with Mid-Ocean Re, in January 1993. And he remembered leaving the office at 9 p.m., walking through Hamilton to his hotel and seeing only three people on the street.

"Times have changed," Mr. Keeling said. "Now we have the most vibrant, progressive, innovative and exciting insurance industry in the world. There is nowhere else I would rather spend the rest of my career."

He said that, like Ms Dunlop, he had no university education and praised the BII for offering professionals the chance to boost their qualifications during their careers.

Mr. Duperreault, the former chief executive officer of Ace Ltd., who oversaw the company's evolution from a small Bermuda insurer into one of the world's leading property casualty insurers, received a standing ovation as he accepted his Lifetime Achievement award.

Now the chairman of Butterfield Bank, he came to Ace in 1994, after a 21-year stint with American International Group (AIG). He admitted that he had arrived with some trepidation.

"I thought they would all be out at the beach, but they had a great work ethic," Mr. Duperreault said.

"It is so wonderful to see what the Bermuda market has become. It is now the most innovative, competitive, best-staffed, best-managed insurance market in the world."

Mr. Duperreault gave special thanks to his 88-year-old mother, his wife Nancy and his mentor Ernest Stempel, a former president of AIG, now 90 years old, all of whom were in the audience.