Platinum Underwriters Bermuda Ltd. is a great example of the opportunities for young Bermudians in the insurance field.

In January the company launched a search with the help of recruitment consultants, PricewaterhouseCoopers, for an executive trainee.

Chief operating officer Bart Hedges says that in this case, his preference was to find someone without prior experience in the field. It's not as illogical as it sounds: "What I was looking for was someone I could train from the ground up - I didn't want to have to untrain someone."

But what he didn't expect was the level of interest that his advertisement would create. Platinum received 77 applications for the one position.

"Most of the people I know just kind of happened into insurance, in my day, not many people knew that they wanted to get into this industry when they left college," Mr. Hedges said.

The successful candidate was 29-year-old Christopher Gauntlett.

Mr. Gauntlett had previously worked in the tourism trade for 12 years and prior to joining Platinum had gained some commercial experience working for a Capital Management company on foreign exchange transactions.

He knew nothing about the insurance industry prior to applying to Platinum, but says it appealed to him to do something completely different. Two months in, he says its a fairly steep learning curve, but he's picking it up at a reasonable pace.

The plan is for Mr. Gauntlett to get a broad range of experience by shadowing other staff who work on the finance side, the underwriters and the actuaries. He will attend meetings, listen to conference calls and work on submissions.

But while the majority of his training will be through assisting and observing more senior staff, Mr. Gauntlett is also expected to read up on the insurance industry and to follow a formal syllabus. Since Platinum is a fairly small operation, the executives will take it in turn to run through what they do with him as well as going over some formal learning materials. Eventually Mr. Gauntlett may decide to pursue a formal qualification as a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter or Associate of Reinsurance, but as Mr. Hedges points out, he's not bound to go into the underwriting side. They would be just as happy if he developed an interest in the finance or actuarial area.

This executive trainee approach is not common among insurers on the Island, but for a small operation without large human resources infrastructure, it makes a lot of sense. One of its main advantages is giving the new hire access to more senior colleagues, while providing manpower for some administrative functions.

Mr. Gauntlett says his advice to other Bermudians wanting to enter the field would be to keep checking the ads. "You have to go out and look for those opportunities... they are out there."