Hall Named Winner Of Third Fred Reiss Award

Bermudian Brian R Hall, OBE, a former director and president of Johnson & Higgins credited with helping to take the island’s captive insurance industry to global relevance, will receive the third Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award at next month’s Bermuda Captive Conference [June 11–13].

A graduate of Saltus Grammar School, Hall served as chair of the Bermuda College and the Insurance Advisory Committee [IAC], as well as founder and trustee advisor of the Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies [BFIS].

He was also founding president of the Bermuda Insurance Management Association [BIMA] during a notable insurance career spanning over four decades on the island—including five years spent working directly with Reiss.

“Brian is a true pioneer in the island’s captive insurance industry,” said Conference Chair Mike Parrish.

“His contributions to both insurance and educational organisations in Bermuda have demonstrated his long and sincere commitment to the island and generations of Bermudians who followed him into the industry. Much of the success we enjoy as a sector today can be attributed to Bermuda-based entities he led and inspired.”

Fred Reiss Lifetime Achievement Award winner Brian Hall

The award, launched in 2016, is named in honour of Reiss, a pioneering Ohio engineer who conceived of the idea of “self-insurance,” by which corporations could manage their own risks through a dedicated subsidiary.

Starting with American steel companies, Reiss pursued the concept in Bermuda, launching the first captive in 1962. The sector recorded exponential growth over the next five decades, distinguishing Bermuda as the world captive leader and fueling the foundation of the island’s entire insurance industry.

The conference launched the award to celebrate the collaboration of outstanding captive insurance industry professionals.

Jill Husbands, former chairman and managing director of Marsh IAS Management Services [Bermuda], was selected the inaugural winner, while Michael Burns, a leading Bermudian corporate lawyer, was the 2017 awardee. This year’s award will be presented to Hall at the official opening of the conference on the morning of Tuesday, June 12, at the Fairmont Southampton.

“I am overwhelmed to be receiving this award and am greatly honoured to be recognised after so many years of service,” said Hall, who now lives in Virginia and will travel to Bermuda for the conference.

“I am incredibly proud of my fellow Bermudians in their success in bringing Bermuda to the forefront of the captive insurance world. I knew Fred Reiss many years ago, and I am thankful for the opportunity to have started in this business with him.”

Born in 1941 in Denton, a small town near Manchester, UK, Hall moved to Bermuda in 1958 to join his parents and got a job at age 17 working for a nascent American International Group [AIG]. In 1964, he was hired by Reiss as a captive account manager for International Risk Management, Reiss’s company where Hall spent five years.

He then launched his own firm, Inter-Ocean Management, that began running captive operations for global insurance brokerage Johnson & Higgins, for which Hall was named CEO and president in 1979, and later chair. J&H Global Captive Management grew to 17 offices and 400 employees worldwide, before merging with Marsh & McLennan in 1997.

Importantly, Hall helped develop the industry’s future through educational initiatives. Among his many roles and achievements, he founded BFIS in 1996 and became Chairman Emeritus of the non-profit, which provides opportunities for Bermudian students to gain necessary education and training to enter the insurance sector.

He led the Board of Governors as chair of the Bermuda College and was nominated by Bermuda’s government to receive an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire [OBE] by the Queen in 1998, for his services to the insurance industry.

Hall served as a board member for Renaissance Reinsurance and helped create BIMA, today the captive sector’s primary industry organisation—an association of professional insurance managers and captive service providers that works to protect the interests of members and clients. In 2001, Hall received a lifetime achievement award from the Bermuda Insurance Institute [BII].

Today, he remains professionally connected to Bermuda through partnership with Oyster Consulting Bermuda, a company that delivers compliance and other services to financial industry clients.

This year’s 14th Bermuda Captive Conference, slated to run June 11–13 at Fairmont Southampton, is expected to attract close to 800 delegates, including captive insurance owners, risk managers, captive managers, sponsors, and vendors from the United States, Canada, Latin America, and the United Kingdom.

Three days of moderated panels and roundtables will focus on hot topics like insurtech, cyber-risk, climate change and healthcare, as well as the industry’s growing diversity around risk, products and talent.

Bermuda is the top global captive jurisdiction, home to close to nearly 740 captive insurance companies supporting primarily Fortune 500 corporations in the US and generating over $55 billion in annual gross written premiums.

For more information about the conference, contact +1-441/295-2626, info@bermudacaptive.bm or go here.

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