?When word got out that I was leaving the industry, people thought I had lost my mind.?

So says Cathy Duffy, recalling her decision to quit as senior vice president, excess liability at Zurich Global Energy in 1999 after building a highly successful career and solid reputation among her peers in the insurance industry.

Her decision was prompted not only by the birth of her son but also by nagging doubts that she could not fully explain at the time. ?I actually didn?t intend to leave the industry but once my son was born I knew I couldn?t leave him. And to be honest I had been feeling disoriented for a long time, my life felt chaotic mainly because of the demands of my job and I needed to feel more balanced,? she says.

She then announced to her husband that she intended to take up writing.

?He laughed!? she says. ?But I woke up at 4 a.m. one morning wrote a complete short story and showed it to him. He was impressed and could see that I was serious.?

And she was determined to make her ?new? career work, eventually writing regular columns for both and the Bermuda Sun, as well as working on fiction projects of her own. In fact this 41-year-old author?s spirit of determination has enabled her to achieve accomplishments that she had not thought possible growing up, the latest of which is the publication of her book, ?Held Captive ? A History of International Insurance in Bermuda?. The book is a comprehensive reference work that charts the development of Bermuda?s international insurance industry from its fledging beginnings in the 1930s through to the early 21st century. ?Held Captive? has been very well received by the industry and was launched last week at an event attended by the who?s who of the insurance and financial services sectors.

?There was over 50 years of experience in the room at the launch, a big cross-section of industry players,? says Mrs. Duffy. ?It?s been very gratifying to get such positive feedback about the book from all levels of people in the industry.?

She adds that when Brian Hall had the idea for the project, she didn?t realise the book she eventually produced would end up having such an impact and resonate so well with people. Mr. Hall, recognised as one of the foremost players and visionaries in Bermuda?s insurance industry whose own career spanned almost 50 years, had apparently long felt there should be some record of how the sector was developed here.

?Brian was really the prime motivator behind making the book happen and wanted to focus on the various individuals and personalities who built the industry here,? says Mrs. Duffy. ?I could see his vision and I wanted to expand on it. I wanted to put our insurance sector in the context of the overall development of Bermuda?s supportive financial services infrastructure as well as significant world events.?

After two years of research, which included interviewing 97 people here and overseas, and another year writing and editing the book, Mrs. Duffy is pleased with the result.

?It was a big assignment because the scope was huge, and it was sometimes frustrating because information was so scattered or not in any written form at all,? she says.

?But I?m happy to have made this kind of contribution to the industry. It?s good to have at least one book that brings together wide-ranging information about the great things that were done here to make Bermuda such a successful insurance centre.?

Mrs. Duffy?s newly-honed skills as a writer and her experience in the industry made her a natural choice as the author for the project. However, she did not originally envision being anything like an insurance executive. In fact, she says she had no idea what she wanted to do after high school in terms of further study or a career.

?I?m one of six siblings and my mother died when I was 13,? she says. ?For a while after my older sisters had left home I adopted the ?mother? role and was focused on that, doing what was needed to look after myself, Dad and my younger brother at home, while going to Berkeley.?

However, after being introduced to well-known insurance veteran Cathy Lord, and as a result working for the summer of 1980 at Willcox Baringer, the former reinsurance arm of Johnson and Higgins, she got her first taste of the industry and her interest was piqued.

?Murray Brown had introduced me to Cathy, who I still regard as my mentor as well as a wonderful friend, and they both encouraged me to apply to Howard University,? she says.

After graduating from Howard in 1984 with a Bachelors degree in Business Administration majoring in Insurance she married her college sweetheart and stayed in the US for the next four years, starting as an underwriting trainee and gaining further experience at several companies including the Hartford Insurance Group and American International Group.

In 1998 she came back to Bermuda for a vacation. A casual conversation with a friend about a small start-up company called XL that wanted to hire Bermudians with insurance experience led to her returning to the Island to continue her career here.

?It?s funny to think that when I was interviewed by Bob Cooney at XL and subsequently joined them, the company was just 11 people in small offices at Victoria Hall and people were only just hearing about it in the market,? says Mrs. Duffy. ?The team worked really hard to get clients in. It took a couple of years and then things really took off.?

By the time she left XL the company had already established itself as a major player in the industry and she was underwriting large accounts of $1 million and over. She had also achieved getting the Chartered Property Casualty Underwriter professional designation and, on the personal front, she was a divorcee. Posts at Starr Excess and Zurich Global Energy followed, the latter bringing the challenge of actually building a company from the ground up.

?I worked alongside Witold Bzdel, the COO, and we started in two rooms in the Gibbons Building. We went from zero to $25 million in premiums in three years. It was hard work but it was the best job I had in the industry.?

She left the insurance sector in 1999 and looks back on her former career with fondness, appreciating the opportunities and experiences she has had. But she has enjoyed the greatest satisfaction of all from her family. She and husband Nick were married in 1992 and now have two children, their five-year-old son Raven and daughter Sedona who is one year old.

?Nick came into my life at just the right time and has helped me to blossom in terms of my personal development,? she says.

Being able to combine her insurance background with her writing has been a bonus, and with the completion of the book she is now taking a break and contemplating what her next project will be.

?Whatever I do next,? she says, laughing, ?I probably won?t be rushing into another project of the same magnitude!?