Budding young Bermudian students were able to step into the shoes of a broker and find out what it takes to be at the cutting edge of Bermuda's insurance industry thanks to a new summer internship initiative launched by Marsh and Guy Carpenter & Co LLC.

'The Broking Experience', which saw the four university students, Kara Fisher, Maceo Walls, Greg Martin and Devin Page, undertake a 12-day programme with the two companies, offered the experience of working within a number of disciplines, including property, casualty, financial and professional liability, and reinsurance.

The internship, which is taking place this month, aims to equip the students with a comprehensive understanding of the role of a re/insurance broker, seeing how renewals are processed; receiving in-depth technical briefings and gaining access to senior brokers to learn directly about personal styles and tactics employed in the role.

The programme also presented the students with cross-cultural comparisons between the role of the broker in Bermuda and that of brokers operating in the UK and the US markets, through their exposure to brokers with diverse commercial backgrounds from across the world.

Nicki Griffiths, assistant vice-president of human resources at Marsh, said a lot of young Bermudians had heard about the underwriting side of the insurance sector, but were not so familiar with the broking operations and what it involves.

Marsh Management Ltd., which along with Guy Carpenter is an operating firm of Marsh & McLennan Companies Inc., came up with the idea for the scheme earlier this year following the launch of the Captive Associates programme due to a large amount of interest and enquiries about starting such a project, said Ms Giffiths.

"I think the fact that it is focusing on broking itself is appealing," she said.

"It is different and folks are interested in that - it seemed like a natural fit in order to do this internship."

Ms Griffiths said that the students, who include two recent graduates and two undergraduates, two who studied Communications, one business and one marketing, will work at Marsh's offices in Wesley Street and Pitts Bay Road-based Guy Carpenter, and go through four rotations in the various fields of broking.

"The brokers that we have here at Marsh and Guy Carpenter primarily come from the US and UK and they have worked for other Marsh offices and have transferred here now, so just by the nature of working with those brokers and being able to ask them questions, not only about their experiences in Bermuda, but in other countries as well, gives them exposure to broking worldwide," she said.

"In some cases, it can actually supplement the students' studies and in others they are learning things that they might be unaware of in their academics.

"The feedback we have received from the interns themselves has been very positive so far - they seem to be thrilled with the experience, and likewise, the brokers have been very complementary of the interns too."

The students have worked with multiple brokers, shadowing them on client calls and meetings, learning how the renewal process takes place and just being able to see how they operate, their style and tactics, giving them a firm grasp of what the role of an insurance broker entails, she said.

"Many Bermudian students thinking about a career in insurance are often only exposed to the underwriting side of the business, so we have created an internship that will expose students to the brokerage side of the business," said Chris Reeves, a managing director of Marsh Inc. and president of Bowring Marsh (Bermuda) Ltd. "By shadowing our senior brokers in four specialist areas, we hope to provide the students with an insight into the daily life of a broker and the business that we do."