60th Anniversary Bermuda Captives 2022:
Catherine Duffy, Author of “Held Captive” (2003) sets out the development of international business thanks to the captive industry setting the foundation for that we celebrate its 60th year.
What Intrigued Me:
Cathy is a civic and community leader, diversity equality and inclusion advocate, and the first woman Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter in Bermuda. As a 40+ year veteran of the Bermuda insurance market 🏆 Cathy was the recipient of the 2021 Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients include Jill Husbands, Michael Burns, Brian Hall, and Jeremy Cox.
What Inspired Me:
Cathy was the first woman to lead AIG Bermuda insurance operations. She's been chosen as one of the 36-woman leaders globally as a fellow for the International Women's Forum in 2018 and 2019.
About the Guest:
Catherine Duffy leads operations and drives the achievement of AIG’s strategic objectives in Bermuda. She is a champion for diversity and inclusion.
About the Show
Podcast Host: Life & Leadership: A Conscious Journey with Dr. Michelle St Jane
A podcast for Global and Re-Emerging Leadership creating community/tribe, a circle of influence, transcendency of compassionate leadership in the world and wider universe. A unique destination for learning about Leadership + Conscious Stewardship + Legacy.
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60th Anniversary Bermuda Captives 2022:
Catherine Duffy, Author of “Held Captive” (2003) sets out the development of international business thanks to the captive industry setting the foundation for that we celebrate its 60th year.
What Intrigued Me:
Cathy is a civic and community leader, diversity equality and inclusion advocate, and the first woman Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter in Bermuda. As a 40+ year veteran of the Bermuda insurance market 🏆 Cathy was the recipient of the 2021 Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award. Past recipients include Jill Husbands, Michael Burns, Brian Hall, and Jeremy Cox.
What Inspired Me:
Cathy was the first woman to lead AIG Bermuda insurance operations. She's been chosen as one of the 36-woman leaders globally as a fellow for the International Women's Forum in 2018 and 2019.
About the Guest:
Catherine Duffy leads operations and drives the achievement of AIG’s strategic objectives in Bermuda. She is a champion for diversity and inclusion.
About the Show
Podcast Host: Life & Leadership: A Conscious Journey with Dr. Michelle St Jane
A podcast for Global and Re-Emerging Leadership creating community/tribe, a circle of influence, transcendency of compassionate leadership in the world and wider universe. A unique destination for learning about Leadership + Conscious Stewardship + Legacy.
⬇️ Listen, Follow, Subscribe and Share ⬇️
Social Media Accounts
Intro: You're listening to Life and Leadership: A Conscious Journey. The
podcast that shares wisdom and strength. Join your host, Dr. Michelle St Jane's
weekly conversation on how to have a positive impact for people, planet, and
the wider world. If you want to live a life of intention, to be proactive with
your time and bring your vision for the future to live one today at a time,
you’re in the right place at the right time. Let's get started.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:00:37] Catherine Duffy a civic and community leader, diversity equality
and inclusion advocate, and the first woman Chartered Property Casualty
Underwriter in Bermuda. As a 40-year veteran of the Bermuda insurance market 🏆 Cathy was the recipient of the 2021 Fred Reiss Lifetime
Achievement Award. Past recipients include Jill Husbands, Michael Burns, Brian
Hall, and Jeremy Cox.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:01:05] The Fred Reiss Award celebrate Bermuda figures who have had an
outstanding impact and made a valuable contribution on the captive insurance industry.
It has its roots in the Bermuda Insurance Institute’s lifetime achievement
Award, of which 🏆 Fred Reiss was the first recipient in the late nineties, being
awarded to him post humorously.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:01:25] Cathy is also the recipient of the 🏆 2021 Inclusion
Champion Award issued by the
Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation. The Insurance Industry Charitable
Foundation celebrates greater diversity and inclusion at all levels within the
insurance industry. This award recognizes leaders who personally and visibly
commit to inclusion, diversity,
equality, and accessibility. Those who embrace diversity of all kinds. The accolades don't
stop there.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:01:54] Cathy is the first woman to lead AIG Bermuda insurance operations. She's been chosen as one of 36-woman leaders
globally as a fellow for the International Women's Forum in 2018 and 2019. What
an inspiration.
📚 At the
turn of the century as an author, Cathy became a way shower, publishing her
book, held captive a history of international business and Bermuda in 2003,
insightful and meticulously compiled.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:02:24] This book, Held
Captive, sets out the
development of the international insurance industry in Bermuda.
Join us in conversation and hear
from Cathy.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:02:33] Thank you, Michelle, for inviting me here. I have to say that we
have to dispel that myth, that “you
can do it and have it all at once. You can and do and have it all.” But over a period of time at one to drive
yourself crazy and everyone else around.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:02:48] Captives are what launched Bermuda as an industry. I've always
been on the underwriting side. So not really on the captive side. We're all
grateful to the captive industry because that is what put Bermuda on the map.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:03:05] You're exactly right and of course you wrote the book Held Captive.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:03:08] Fred Reiss, the grandfather of captives. How do you see his place
in terms of contribution to the island?
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:03:18] Well, the interesting thing is the concept of captives was around
before Fred Reiss actually took it to the next level. It was the oil companies
who needed a solution for them to carry their products or during wartime.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:03:32] They actually came up with a concept of captives. It was
actually Fred Reiss who took that concept because he recognized in about the
fifties and sixties that some companies were having difficulty placing or
getting coverages and recognized that these companies could actually start
taking those risk on themselves and to their balance sheets.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:03:54] He was the one who took that concept from the energy industry to
a much broader range of clients. When he first was trying to find a
jurisdiction for it, he was traveling near and far trying to find a
jurisdiction that could actually allow the captive industry to take off. He
just happened to be in London and have dinner with someone who ran Lloyds
syndicate as well as Bill Kemp. Bill Kemp was very instrumental in the law
world as well. They rolled out a lunch on a Sunday afternoon, and Bill Kemp was
very keen on putting Bermuda on the map for getting international business here
after AIG, AI Co. here for their international operations in 1947.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:04:46] As a result of that, the industry here started to think we could
make, put it on the map for international business. So, Bill Kemp was out-marketing
and he told Fred Reiss about Bermuda. Fred Reiss didn't even wait for Bill Kemp
to come back to Bermuda. He just flew to Bermuda and ended up meeting with
Henry Tucker, who also was out there marketing the benefits of Bermuda.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:05:10] At that time Tucker was running the Bank of Bermuda. He spoke to
him and that is how the whole captive industry. A chance meeting and at a time
Bermuda was trying to put itself on the map.
But it didn't happen right away.
Captives didn't come until the market started shifting in the sixties.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:05:30] After a few hurricanes happened, large oil losses, then real
surge in captives started to happen after the 1970s.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:05:41] How did you come to write the book Held Captive? What was the driver behind that?
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:05:45] I had taken a sabbatical from the industry, had my son and
decided that I wanted to stay at home.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:05:53] Never thinking that I would do that because I was at the height
of my career as well. Right. So, it really surprised me, my husband and
everybody else around me that I decided to step away from a high-profile career
to be a full-time mom.
But my mother died suddenly when
I was 13. And you don't realize the impact that those tragedies have on you
until much later.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:06:16] So, becoming a mother myself, I evolved actually. When I was
young, I decided that I was never going to be my mother. That I was going to be
this career woman that was independent and had her own source of income and all
sorts of things. So, it really shocked me that I realized just how critical the
role of a mother is.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:06:35] None of that is to disparage any woman who decides to continue to
work. Each woman has the right to do and should do what feels right to her and
to her. There's no right or wrong way to do things. It is just where we are in
our lives. I always caveat that because some people try to pit one side against
the other where is no right or wrong. It's just what feels right to you and
your family.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:06:54] For me, it felt right for me to stay home with my son. During
that time, I was trying to figure out ways that I could stay home for as long
as possible. I started to write columns for the Bermuda Sun. That was a spiritual column, actually about how I journey from being a career woman to a
full-time mom.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:07:16] The feedback was so great that it expanded into more than just a
spiritual column. Then it got so big that people were like living off my, every
word that it scared me. I stopped writing the column and decided to do
something more. The Royal
Gazette had asked me to write
something about the insurance industry.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:07:35] Then it got so much feedback that they asked me to write a Monday
column for them on insurance, which I started to do.
What was interesting about that
is I started having all sorts of analysts from around the world, calling to ask
my opinion on things. Which is kind of laughable. But anyway, this shows that
none of us have the answers. We all just need to help each other to collect.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:07:55] From me doing that column, Brian Hall asked me, if I would write
the book about the history of international insurance in Bermuda. I naively
thought that there was already something like it, but he just wanted me to
expand on it. Once I started doing the research and trying to figure out what
the intention of the book was, I realized that I was completely in uncharted
territory.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:08:23] There was nothing that had set out any basis for the
international insurance industry. I had to set up an Excel spreadsheet just to
try to find trends or what, or how the book was going to be best laid out.
I interviewed over a hundred
people because. I had to figure out where this all started from. Thankfully, I
got to several of these people before they passed away.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:08:51] Once I started to get the information and put it in years, I
realized that there was a trend that was occurring. That trend was that every
10 years after the world changed Bermuda responded by doing
🤞1970s
captives were formed;
🤞1980s XL
and ACE were formed because of pharmaceutical problems, medical malpractice,
tort liability, going through the roof;
🤞1990s
finite risk with Centre Re.
⛈️ 2000s We
had some of the big hurricanes happened
Bermuda has responded to the
world in providing solutions for global stability. That's something that a lot
of people do recognize.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:09:39] They think of Bermuda in isolation. A lot of people think of us
as a tax Haven. A lot of people think that we're a fly by night type
jurisdiction, but honestly speaking without Bermuda a lot of the world would
have been destabilized.
We have provided solutions for:
🏢 companies,
🧑🏿🤝🧑🏻 communities,
⚓ countries,
🫂 people
globally.
And that's all thanks to people
like Fred Reiss who had foresight, the people that came in the eighties and the
nineties.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:10:06] Without them, we just wouldn't be where we are.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:10:09] Global players have a part to play in the world and one which is
powerful.
Catherine R. Duffy: [00:10:26] We’re not called an incubator for the world for no reason at all.
It is because we allow companies to form ideas here and then they branch out
globally.
Dr. Michelle St Jane: [00:10:37] Thank you so much for contributing to memorializing Fred Reiss.
[00:10:43] Catherine R. Duffy: Thank you, Michelle for the opportunity.
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