Synergy to sponsor Wordings Specialists’ Gathering XVI
Synergy’s Insurance division is delighted to announce its sponsorship of the Wordings Specialists’ Gathering XVI.
The annual event is to be held in the Great Hall of the Loose Cannon Sports Bar, Allhallows Lane, Upper Thames Street, London, EC4R 3UL on Friday the 7th of November 2008. The event begins at 17:30 and all attendees should wear their guest passes to ensure entrance and service at the bar.
The Gathering is an annual social evening arranged by wordings and policy people for their colleagues and peers in the London insurance market. It is an opportunity for “wordings” people, old and new in the market, to:
- Put faces to names of the people that they deal with outside their own companies (frequently who are just in different divisions of the same company!)
- Let underwriting staff meet broking staff and vice versa (when you are all not usually allowed to go out of the office, this is quite important!)
- Meet the boys and girls who actually process their documents (almost the only time of the year that they are allowed out unaccompanied!)
- Network and realise that we are all on the same side really (getting the words right!)
- Make new friends or just renew old friendships
- Find jobs (or fill vacancies)
- Come back into “The Smoke” once a year, realise that it is not just policemen that have got younger; that the industry has (or has not) gone to pot since you retired and see all those bright young things that you helped educate become grey and withered (just like you!)
- Get a hang-over!!
Its’ History
In 1991 three wordings professionals met up in the City during the run-up to Christmas to “socialise”. After quite a few rounds of “socialising”, it was commented on that although brokers bought underwriters festive drinks, and vice versa, the only people who appeared to be willing to entertain wordings and policy professionals were other wordings and policy “bods”, usually without the benefit of an expense account.
It was decided there and then to organise a “gathering” of these pariahs of the insurance industry the following year on the basis that they would buy each other drinks as nobody else would. Only one rule was agreed upon, which was that all attendees would have to be primarily involved in the drafting, agreeing or signing of wordings or policies for the London insurance market.
At the end of 1992, invitations went out by word of mouth to some 40 individuals working at a variety of brokers, syndicates and insurance companies in the City who all met up one evening in December in an East End pub and instigated the first annual “Gathering”.
Over the years the Gathering has evolved in a number of ways whilst always retaining its core principle, being that it is a social event organised by wordings and policy people for their peers in the market. A permanent venue was found, what is now the Loose Cannon EC4, the guest list was expanded to include “associates” such as international law firms, specialist employment agencies, market associations and the like.
The 11th Gathering in 2003 saw a major change brought about by the ever-increasing numbers involved. With some 400 acceptances out of in excess of 700 invitees, it was decided to see if it would be possible to arrange both a buffet and a prize draw to enhance everyone’s evening.
The landmarks of the Gatherings include:
- Gathering I – Forty-odd people at Docks and Co who got free food because another booking had cancelled too late for the food to be cancelled
- Gathering II – A lot more people at the Seven Stars where the Landlord had been there less than a week and had not been told we were coming. Nick Eaton plastered the place with E. H. Shephard posters of Winnie the Pooh and Eyore with quotes such as “This writing business …Overrated if you ask me”
- Gathering III – At the Great Eastern Hotel (now the Terminus) where the room booked was only big enough for about a third of the people who turned up
- Gatherings IV through to XVI – We found a permanent home in All Hallows Lane, EC4!
The Numbers
This year the 1,000 plus invitees come from nearly 200 different companies associated with wordings in the London Market, however, the figures are growing by the day. As you would expect, the majority are either employed by broking houses (585 from 99 companies) or insurance carriers (105 from 33 insurance companies and 71 from 24 managing agencies) with a further 124 from 10 service providers and 58 from 16 international law firms.
The next largest group are either wordings people who have retired from the market and/or are currently “in between jobs” (this is a social evening after all) with the remainder coming from various loss adjusters, market associations, recruitment companies specialising in technical insurance staff, technology suppliers and members of the press.
This is the first time Synergy have sponsored the gathering and we are proud to be associated with such a prestigious and established event and we are sure that this partnership will continue into the forseeable future.
Our whisky tasting stand was well received by everyone at the event