Exploring new ways to help young people find careers in the Island's insurance industry is high on the agenda of incoming Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies (BFIS) president and chairman Michael Fisher.

Since being founded in 1996, BFIS has provided around $3 million worth of scholarships to 92 recipients, and has also provided mentoring, internships and networking support to help young Bermudians into the industry.

But, Mr. Fisher, who is managing principal at insurance broker Integro's Bermuda office, says it's time to examine whether the educational charity's model should be adapted to better serve today's needs — and to ensure affordability for BFIS.

"The challenge for BFIS now is best summed up as sustainability," said Mr. Fisher, who succeeds XL Re's Paul Simons as chairman of the BFIS board of trustees.

"We are looking at ourselves internally and to work out what BFIS should be doing going forward.

"In 1996, there was a clear need for scholarships, but now there is a lot of scholarship money about, from companies like Ace, XL and Axis, and from ABIC, for example."

Many entities were doing virtually the same thing, Mr. Fisher said, and BFIS had to consider whether it should be doing something different to fulfil other needs, such as providing support for postgraduate degrees or getting more involved with public schools.

BFIS was handing out only a couple of scholarships per year in its early days, each worth in the region of $15,000. These days it is averaging 10 per year, each at a cost of $25,000 to $30,000. This year BFIS received 65 scholarship applications — an increase of 25 percent over the previous year — which executive director Catherine Lapsley attributed to factors including advertising, ongoing school presentations, presence at colleges and careers fairs and increasing financial need.

At the same time that the Foundation's expenses have soared, low interest rates have meant it is earning less from its endowment. The chairman's report to the BFIS annual general meeting last week showed that, for the past three years, annual donations and interest income have totalled less than expenditure on scholarships, supporting programmes and administration.

This was partly because BFIS reduced its fund-raising efforts during the downturn.

"We've not been knocking on doors for the past couple of years," Mr. Fisher said. "But we intend to start a fund-raising campaign early next year. We'll go to see some past donor companies and some of the newer companies which may not have donated before.

"I intend to use some of our graduates in this effort, as there's no better way of showing what BFIS does than the people who we have helped to enter the industry."

The BFIS investment portfolio has suffered impairments through the downturn, but has recovered somewhat. At June 30, its cash and investments were valued at almost $5.5 million.

Mr. Fisher said: "I'm excited about the opportunity to be chairman, having served as a trustee for the past 10 years.

"I've worked with some tremendous people who have helped BFIS to evolve into the organisation that it is today, an organisation which has helped many talented Bermudians into the insurance industry, as a result of the support we've been able to give them."