At just 22-years-old, Teniko Eve is the front-line for the Bermuda-domiciled captive management firm Marsh.

After receiving his International Baccalaureate while studying in Hong Kong, and graduating from St. John’s University in New York City, Teniko is already impressing his co-workers, just six months into the job.

“My job entails mostly dealing with new clients,” said Teniko, at the Marsh office on Victoria Street in Hamilton. “So we get a lot of Requests for Proposals that we have to send out, and I’m the front line here at Marsh.

“I have to go and research the company, find out if it’s a legit company, first of all, see if there’s any anti-money laundering or anything that throws up any red flags. So I first do that, and once I found out that it’s okay, then I go back to my boss and we begin the proposal process for the client.”

At Marsh, Teniko looks at a vast array of companies in need of their own insurance captive, and has evidently become excellent at describing a business a layman would normally struggle to understand.

“With captive insurance, it’s all based on companies that aren’t regularly dealing with insurance, that want to set up their own insurance entity. So hypothetically, a big company like Wal-Mart would have employee benefits they want to insure, that they’re currently insuring through the commercial market.

“Instead of that they would like to put it through their own captive because it saves money, and they also have more control over the insurance programme. So that’s really what captive insurance is about. My job is finding those new companies, and sometimes they come in, sometimes we go out and look for them and try to get that business. A lot of it is explaining, tied to a lot of presentations, explaining to people what a captive actually is, and what we do here at Marsh.”

That job comes with a lot of responsibility. Determining whether a new company is run well, and legally, is a task that has given Teniko more experience than another role in the company could offer.

“Recently we came across a client who didn’t have very good public relations, and I let my boss know, and in the end we didn’t pursue them. It’s definitely a lot of responsibility and especially within my team, it’s only me and my boss. We report directly to the CEO, so we deal a lot with the senior management here at Marsh and a lot of the different clients. Some people here they really only get their own starting clients, like three or four, but because of the role that I am in, as well as finding new clients we try to develop business within our own clients, and expand business here. So I am dealing with a lot of senior management as I go around, so yes, even though I’ve only been here for six months I’ve had a lot of responsibility.”

But it’s not just insurance acumen that has put Teniko ahead of the pack. Diversifying your skill set, he said, can put you at a distinct competitive advantage.

“I am a big part of the Bermuda Captive Conference that happens every summer. I am running all the back-end on the website, as well as being a part of the social events committee, so I’m hoping to do all the event planning. It’s not actually part of my job but I volunteered for the position, and I’ve been liking it and learning a lot. It’s definitely a big advantage to diversify and learn a lot of new things because you never know where you might end up.”

Unlike many of his generation’s peers, Teniko had the luxury of knowing exactly what he wanted to do when he began college at St. John’s University. That meant, said Teniko, he was able to seek out internships before graduation, and put himself in the best position for employment.

“I guess my internship started before I actually went to college. I did my last two years of high school in Hong Kong with the United World College programme. When I came back, I knew someone who worked at Marsh. He was actually my first mentor, his name is Scott Gemmell. He told me all about what they do here. He introduced me to the HR people, so that I actually had my first SKYPE interview when I was away in Hong Kong. I had just turned 18. I was just about to graduate high school, and that was the first time I had a real internship with an insurance company.

“I’ve known my plan since I went to university. I knew I wanted to do insurance, I knew I wanted to do risk management, and interning with Marsh, and also through the

The Bermuda Foundation for Insurance Studies (BFIS), I just had a lot of contacts through networking, and I felt like my life was already going on it’s path before I came out of university. So yes, it did help a lot.”

After coming in at an entry-level position with Marsh, Teniko is now pushing for more designations, aiming higher up the career ladder.

“I came in at an entry-level position and this is absolutely not where I want to be in two or three years, that’s why I’m pushing to get my CPCU so I can be more qualified, and after that I’ll go for my Associated Risk Management certification. So I want to get more designations and I want to keep working hard at this job, and hopefully I can keep on moving to more senior positions as I go through.”

His advice for young Bermudians looking for a position within insurance is to first begin networking.

“That is the biggest thing about the insurance industry, especially here in Bermuda. Being such a small island with so many insurance people, you have a cross between captives, and brokers, and reinsurance, and the commercial insurance market, so absolutely, get out and meet people. BFIS have an internship every year. They have one in Bermuda, one in Chicago, and one in London. I did the Bermuda one two years ago, so we got to go around to 30 different companies here, and we met about 15-20 CEOs. Two of the people have gotten jobs from that internship, and you don’t have to be a BFIS scholar to do it, you can apply on the BFIS website. If you’re interested in insurance, and you’re actually serious about insurance, then you can apply and hopefully you’ll be accepted. The ones to Chicago and London are paid for. You get a stipend for food as well. The plane is free, the boarding is free, the food is free, so it’s a very good opportunity. Also, definitely try to find an internship. That was definitely my biggest help, being a part of Marsh already made it much easier to apply for the Marsh job. I think almost 80-100 people applied for the job, but because I had my foot in the door being an intern, I think it did help them decide to choose me in the end.”