BY MARK E. RUQUET
DEVELOP a specialty in the insurance business and you will never have to worry
about staying employed, Patrick
G. Ryan, founder and former chief
executive of the insurance-brokerage firm Aon, declared during a
Feb. 16 address in New York.
Speaking at the 16th Annual
Industry Leaders Luncheon
sponsored by the Eastern Chapter
of the Professional Liability
Underwriting Society (PLUS),
Ryan, current chairman and CEO
of Ryan Specialty Group LLC, said
the insurance industry remains
“a great industry,” offering lots
of opportunities for individual success for
budding entrepreneurs.
Ryan, who founded the wholesale
brokerage firm RSG in 2010 after a brief
retirement, said he started up RSG because
the insurance industry continues to offer
an entrepreneur great opportunities—and
being an entrepreneur himself, he could
not escape the pull of starting a new
business again.
Timing was not an issue, he noted,
reasoning that “the best time to do it is now,
because you can’t pick your opportunity
in life when to start a business.”
He says another driving force is the
appeal of doing something that has “a
powerful impact” to benefit others. Without
insurance, he continued, commerce would
not have developed to the global scale it
has today—and “I like the idea of having
an impact on what we do in life.”
Because insurance is a creative industry
that aims to solve the problems behind
risk, it must attract great talent, he said,
and that is the heart of any organization.
He added that “the quality of talent” is also
how brokers differentiate themselves in the
eyes of their clients.
Ryan said his heart has always been in
specialization, and that is why he is where
he is today. He advised producers
that if they are good at what they
do, they should evolve their talent
into developing a specialty and
they “will be employed forever.”
Communication is another
key component to success, he
said, which means that producers
need to be good listeners; being a
good listener is a major factor in
changing minds.
BY STAFF WRITER
LEXINGTON INSURANCE Co., a Char- tis company, has introduced a new coverage to reimburse colleges and
universities for the loss of tuition incomes
when an enrolled international student
withdraws due to a catastrophe at home.
“According to the Institute of
International Education, more than
700,000 international students enrolled
to study at U.S. colleges and universities
during the 2010-2011 academic year,” says
Erik Nikodem, senior vice president and
property division executive at Lexington.
“These students typically pay premium
tuition rates and receive little to no
funding from the college or university. If
a catastrophe event in their country causes
these students to withdraw, the financial
impact to the college or university could
be substantial.”
The product, called HELP-International
Catastrophe, is Lexington’s first as part
of the company’s Higher Education
Loss Protection suite of coverages. It is
available by endorsement to Lexington’s
property-insurance policy and is triggered
by a catastrophe event, such as a flood
or an earthquake in a foreign country, as
opposed to a direct physical loss or damage
to the property of the college or university.
