Annual Meeting

The library had its annual meeting today and welcomed a new trustee, Patrick Quinn of Quinn Group Insurance, to the board.

Patrick Quinn and Frederick N. Nowell, III

Three awards were presented at the meeting as well. Sara Hua of Ironshore earned The Frank W. Humphrey Award. Joe Sciacca, her instructor, presented the award after a heartfelt speech about all of Sara's hard work. Her acceptance speech almost brought the group to tears!

Sarah Hua and Joseph Sciacca

Marc Cleary presented The Barbara W. Thornton Award to his colleague and student, Samantha Frank of Liberty Mutual. She spoke highly of Marc in her acceptance speech mentioning his excellent track record in preparing her for the national examinations.

Marc Cleary & Samantha Frank

Finally, Marc Cleary received an award as a teacher of excellence, for the above average passing ratio of students in his classes. It is the highest level of award from The Institutes, and Marc seemed both surprised and very pleased to be the recipient! He commented that it's the students who do so well, he merely encourages them to take the tests. "You can't pass unless you try."

We are very proud of all three award winners and pleased that they could attend the meeting this morning!

Onward & Upward

Sandra Glaser Parrillo, 2011 Insurance Professional of the Year Award Winner

Donald F. Vose, President of the Board of Trustees for The Insurance Library Association of Boston

I'm afraid this blog languished while we worked on the Education Fair in September and the Insurance Professional of the Year Event in October. November is suddenly upon us and we're shocked at how quickly our annual meeting is approaching.

I mentioned last year that after The Insurance Professional of the Year Award Ceremony it often feels like a new year around here (perhaps it's no coincidence that our event occurs in the same season as Rosh Hashanah). So I'm sure you'll pardon us as we reflect a little.

A lot has happened in the last year:

1. We've worked harder on maintaining our website and blog. We've started a LinkedIn profile for the library and we're exploring ways to make our library even more available electronically.

2. We've added more items to our adopt a book program, and to our wishlist (and we finally got the laptop we'd put on there several years ago!).

3. We held our first ever Education Fair (with a lot of support), and had our 10th Insurance Professional of the Year Award Ceremony (which included a lot of firsts as well).

4. We put on our first ever (though, not last) silent auction during the social hour at The Award Ceremony -- thanks to a lot of support for that, we raised about $6,300 for the library!

Some staff changes include:

1. Our Director, Jean Lucey, changing her schedule to working three days a week.

2. Our "other" Jean, Jean Osborne, increasing her hours to three days a week (we don't ever want to be short a Jean).

3. Meagan completing another two CPCU tests on her way toward earning the designation.

It really does feel like a whirlwind, but we are glad that you were here for the ride!

Annual Meeting Recap

This year's annual meeting was fairly eventful. We said a sad farewell to several of our trustees. Trusting that they'll remain stalwart library supporters.

Paula Gold Vice President and Chief Regulatory Counsel for Plymouth Rock Assurance, has been replaced by Charles (Chuck) C. Hewitt, III Executive Vice President of Guy Carpenter.

John Donohue CEO of Arbella has been replaced by Jim Hyatt, also of Arbella. In June, Jim Hyatt became the Vice President of their personal lines group.

Philip J. Edmundson, CEO and Chairman of William Gallagher Associates, who was brought on as an associate treasurer mid-term 1989 and then as a full board member as of the November 1989 meeting, also passed the torch. Patrick J. Veale, President of WGA, has taken Phil's place (he brought up some excellent points during the meeting and we're eager to see what other ideas he brings to the board).

Though his term was not up, Josiah D. Hatch, president of H. R. Hatch Insurance Agency, has stepped down. He was a special appointment to The Board in December of 1995. The Board voted to make him a Trustee Emeritus for all of his hard and exceedingly productive work over the past 15 years. A new Trustee will be appointed to fill Josiah's place.

Other changes to the board included the election of a new Board President, Donald F. Vose Vice President of The Andover Companies. He seems eager to become familiar with all of the committees and has already sat on an education committee meeting.

A good portion of the meeting was also devoted to discussing the many Massachusetts and New Hampshire insurance continuing education classes which the library provides and the future of those classes. This included highlighting our foray into webinars with "Coverage Review of the Business Auto Policy" slated to start in January. See our website for current and upcoming class listings!

The Frank W. Humphrey Award

The Frank W. Humphrey Golden Anniversary Award was established by Maurice H. Saval (after whom our education arm is named) in honor of Frank W. Humphrey, his mentor. Mr. Humphrey was at the agency Boit Dalton & Church, later Frank B. Hall & Company and now Aon Risk Services of Massachusetts. The prize was first awarded to commemorate Mr. Humphrey’s 50th year in the insurance business and is intended to be a special tribute to his contribution to our industry by his guidance and assistance to young people entering the business.

The winner each year is chosen from among those students who have successfully completed the course in Property and Liability Insurance Principles taught by Joe Sciacca. The student with the highest grade on the national exam that year earns the award. The presentation each year takes place during the Library's Annual Meeting.

This year's winner was Michelle Mozzicato from Crum & Forster. Michelle Mozzicato has worked at Crum & Forster Insurance for the past 11 years. She began her career with C&F as an Executive Assistant, and held that title for nine years. She was promoted to an Operations Supervisor in 2008, and most recently promoted to Operations Manager in 2009.

Prior to Crum & Forster Michelle was an Executive Assistant at BankBoston for 14 years. Michelle is married with two teenage boys, and resides in Stoneham, MA.

The picture below of Joe congratulating Michelle was taken by her husband at this year's meeting. You can expect more information on the annual meeting in tomorrow's blog post!

Joseph Sciacca & Michelle Mozzicato

Annual Meeting

Following close on the heels of the Insurance Professional of the Year Award Ceremony every year is the Annual Meeting of the Association. This year the Annual Meeting has been scheduled for Tuesday, November 16, 2010. All members of the Insurance Library are encouraged to attend (as an incentive there is a light breakfast served at 8:00am) and hear about current initiatives at the library, take a look at the library budget, and hear about new library business.

If you are a member and are unable to attend, please feel free to fill out the proxy form found here.

We hope to see you in a couple of weeks!