In olden times, grizzled men would journey great distances to further commerce, with the trade routes gaining a reputation for the arduous travel required. Today, grizzled dudes and chicks hop on a plane without a thought, to journey even greater distances to further commerce.
No event in the calendar stirs the sinew of the Bermuda insurance and reinsurance industry more than the convention, educational conference and epic bash that is RIMS, the Risk & Insurance Management Society’s annual get-together. Held each year in April, the event used to attract 10,000 insurance people to such cities as San Diego, New Orleans or, this year, Boston. Smaller numbers have become the norm, what with the global economic system broken.
RIMS is ... well, if you’re not into insurance, it would be the deadliest game imaginable. Thousands of insurers gathered in one place at one time for no particular reason would seem like the third circle of hell to a teenager, for example. Area hotels and restaurants clog up with the risk brigade. A ghastly first-night rock and roll ball is followed by dispersal to every neighbourhood watering-hole. Walking around whatever city RIMS is in, you sense that you’re only seeing what the city looks like when it’s congested with insurance types. What it’s like normally is impossible to say.
Bermuda fights way above its weight at RIMS. Every year, a phalanx of more than 100 Bermuda suits and suitettes flies in. The Bermuda booth was once a charming little cottage; now it’s a two-storey affair. The upper deck, curtained off, is for private conversations, deals and romantic trysts. The hotel can be a little public for any such business, given that everyone in the place is attending the conference and might be a colleague, or your spouse.
I went to Orlando last year. It was a chance to catch up with old friends ... and then there are the freebies. All the major insurance companies have booths at the trade show that lies at the heart of the RIMS experience. Small gifts are offered to attendees if they will but spend a few minutes chatting with, or listening to, booth staff. Or you can just steal the stuff. No one cares.
Freebies are often highly useful and desirable devices. The Bermuda bag is always the hit of the show. Yup, they go nuts for a free bag. Lloyd’s gave me a flashlight one year that will work forever. They’re now trying to come up with a way to make me live that long. Freebies can, however, be even less useful than airport gifts. Pens and squeezy rubber objects have been in vogue since RIMS began, in 1703 (approx).
I speak for every attendee when I say: give us cash instead. We will then decide what junk to buy to take home to our families and mistresses. We’re big boys and girls. We can handle it. And then you wouldn’t have to stamp your logo on 10,000 coasters before burning 9,900 of them.
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