Bermudians with sights on a career in the insurance industry received a boost with the merger of the College of Insurance with St. John's University.

The Bermuda College has an affiliation with The College of Insurance (TCI) situated in New York's financial district in downtown Manhattan. Scores of graduates from the Bermuda College have furthered their studies at TCI, many with scholarships and grants from the Bermuda Insurance Institute.

The matriculation arrangement sees students who graduate from the Bermuda College's two year insurance studies programme, continue their remaining studies for a Bachelor of Science degree, at The Insurance College.

The merger will see TCI become part of the business school of St. John's University and according to a Press release from the two institutions, will "create a more powerful business education programme for students of both institutions''.

Under the agreement TCI will be renamed the School of Risk Management Insurance and Actuarial Science (SRM) and will remain in its current location, a 10-storey building at 101 Murray Street, Manhattan.

The new SRM will bring to five the number of campuses St. John's has worldwide. Other campuses are in Queens, Staten Island, Eastern Long Island in New York and Rome, Italy.

Dr. Ellen Thrower, president of The College of Insurance, said: "The merger with St. John's University offers the most creative and promising strategy for achieving our vision of becoming the premier academic programme in risk management, insurance and actuarial science.'' TCI is a small private independent college which serves about 2,000 students.

Founded in 1901 it offers graduate and undergraduate degree programmes as well as professional education programmes for continuing education.

The merger agreement while approved by the boards of trustees of both institutions, is still subject to regulatory approval.