Bermuda is in a most enviable position in the insurance world because of the wave of new insurers and reinsurers setting up here.

While many in the rest of the insurance world are worrying about whether they will be able to find a job in their domestic markets, "insurance professionals" here have the opportunity to pick and choose who they want to work for.

I use the term "insurance professional" with some hesitation because the true meaning of this term is often confused in many people's minds.

I was talking to a colleague recently about the state of the insurance industry and the plight of people trying to enter and stay in it.

My colleague asked me to write a column about what it takes to get into, and make it, in the industry.

I thought for quite some time about the best way to tackle this challenging topic.

I then decided to write about my own personal experience in the hopes that it would help someone to make it or stay in the industry.

These next few columns are geared toward those of you trying to find a way into the insurance world.

Many people in Bermuda believe that everyone in insurance is earning a huge salary like some CEOs of the major insurers on the Island.

This is totally untrue.

Many people in the industry are earning very good salaries.

Salaries they probably would not be able to earn in many other professions on the Island.

However, what a few people fail to realise is that earning a huge salary comes at a price.

A price that many people in the industry do not want to pay in the early days and often they give up and move out before they have "earned their stripes".

I cringe just typing this phrase because I hated to hear it when I first started in the Bermuda industry in 1988.

I did not want to earn my stripes.

I just wanted to be "big" in the industry.

I did not want to sit back on the sidelines.

When I reached a senior level in the industry, I was glad that I was forced to learn the ropes because it was at this point that I began to go head to head with some of the most sophisticated insurance buyers in the world.

It was then that I realised I needed to go through what I had in order to be confident enough to hold my own with any client.

I graduated from Howard University with an insurance degree in 1984.

I thought that with my degree in hand, I was going to set the world on fire.

I did my underwriting training with the Hartford Insurance Group which basically consisted of three weeks intensive classroom training followed by work in a branch office to do my practical training.

Practical training meant sitting with an underwriter and watching what she did, listening to her dealing with customers and asking questions when I did not understand what was going on.

I also had to do a lot of her back-up work including photocopying, completing her work ups and all the horrible things I thought someone way beneath me should be doing.

My trainer gave me so many words of wisdom.

She told me to always be kind to the support people because they are the ones who can either make you look good to the outside world or they can make you look bad depending on how they feel about you.

I always remembered her words and kept close to the people who prepared my work.

I never looked down on them.

And as a consequence I always appeared very efficient to the outside world.

I returned home in 1988 to work for Exel Limited, now known as XL Capital.

Back then there were only 14 of us working in a very small office in Victoria Hall.

When I left the United States, many people thought Exel was related to Exxon.

They wondered why I would go to such a small operation after working for the big names in the states.

Something in my gut told me I had to go.

Despite having nearly five years of underwriting experience in the US, when I returned to Bermuda, I took a cut in pay and had my title of Senior Insurance Analyst reduced to that of Assistant Underwriter.

I recognised that in order for me to get into the market, I had to become a trainee again because I had to learn a different line of insurance.

It was really difficult at first to have to take orders again and to become the gofer.

Eventually I realised that if I did want to run my own show, I would have to swallow my pride.

I needed to learn the tricks to the trade before I could become a player in the trade.

So for four years, I sat and watched.

I listened to the way the business was conducted.

I watched client's reactions to the way an underwriter spoke to them.

I photocopied but instead of complaining about what I was photocopying, I read what I was photocopying.

I started to ask what terms meant when I did not understand them instead of pretending that I knew it all.

Then before I knew it, I was paired up with someone I consider to be a master of the game, Bob Cooney.

Bob had clients eating out of the palm of his hand. I wanted to be just like him.

So I made life as easy as possible for him by completing tasks that he did not have time for.

Before long I had earned his trust and as a result he began to give me more and more responsibility because he trusted that I would not screw it up.

I was handling some of the largest accounts that came to the Island because Bob gave me the rope.

Then Bob was promoted and so was I.

And you know why I was promoted right along with him?

Because I helped to make him look good.

I did not try to undermine him.

We worked as a team and we did a good job together.

He gave me some wonderful words of wisdom too.

Bob once told me the only way people can move up in an organisation is by having capable people behind them to take their place.

And he was so right.

I always carried that thought in the back of my mind.

And with the companies I worked for after leaving XL, I always made sure there was someone behind me who could take my place.

I never hid information from people. I shared.

The key is to find people that are as eager as you are to succeed and have your same business ethic.

Next week, I will explore the price I had to pay for my success.

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Cathy Duffy is a Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter (CPCU) and is now a freelance writer. She is a former executive of Zurich Global Energy and has 15 years experience in the insurance industry. She writes on insurance issues in the Royal Gazette every Monday. Send feedback and questions to crduffycwbda.bm