During his first employee town hall as chief executive of AIG in 2017, Brian Duperreault told employees that his first thought about taking the job was: “You’ve got to be crazy!”

He began his career in 1973 at AIG as an actuarial trainee, and after 50 years in insurance and reinsurance, he recently sat down with Lori Chordas of AM Best TV to reflect on his career and discuss his new book Faith and Purpose: The Life and Vision of Insurance Industry Icon Brian Duperreault.

The book was written by Wendy Davis Johnson, the former Bermudian-based journalist and longtime insurance executive.

Mr Duperreault, now executive chairman of Cedar Trace, chronicles an impressive career and offers personal insights and lessons from a lifetime of leadership in risk and resilience.

In the Best interview, he reveals how personally shaken he was after the events of September 11, 2001.

He said: “It's really moments like that where leadership is important.

“You need to reflect on what you need to do to show leadership — whether it's being strong in the face of the event or organising, mobilising, encouraging the people that work with you to do their job, because that was the most important thing we needed to do.

“We were all in mourning, but we needed to make sure that we did what needed to be done.

“That was extremely important. It was an insurance event and we needed to take care of the people who were affected by it.”

He believes in the need to diversify the leadership at the C-suite level of the insurance industry, and that leadership standards have remained somewhat consistent over the years.

What has changed is data and technology, the trained actuary noted, recalling how when he was first at AIG, there was only one actuary on staff.

He said the business today is far more professional than in earlier years.

Mr Duperreault, who was born in Paget in 1947, accepts that his life has been a gift. He told AM Best TV that together with his relationship with God, it is what keeps him grounded.