BFIS continues funding the future of insurance with new scholarships
The Bermuda Foundation For Insurance Studies (BFIS) has awarded $230,000 in new scholarship funding to 10 students who want careers in Bermuda’s insurance sector.
This sum brings the total amount of funding that the BFIS has awarded since the charity was founded in 1996 to nearly $6.5 million.
The total number of current BFIS scholars now at college is 31, which is a funding commitment of $480,000. BFIS has now assisted 189 students with scholarship funding and, with 10 BFIS scholars graduating this year, 152 alumni are now employed in the insurance sector and related industries.
The money was announced at the BFIS Scholarship Awards Reception, attended by over 80 guests including BFIS donors, trustees, committee members, mentors, alumni, the new awardees and their parents, at O’Hara House, courtesy of XL Catlin.
Gail Martin, BFIS Chairman, started the event by highlighting the reason BFIS was created, which was to provide financial support and guidance for Bermudian students so that they would have the opportunity to obtain the appropriate education and training in order to pursue an insurance-related career. She went on to thank the Scholarship Committee for their difficult task in selecting the recipients.
Dr. Duranda Greene, Chairman of the BFIS Scholarship Committee, in presenting the BFIS awards noted that, “We received 75 applications of which 34 were freshmen, 18 sophomores, 20 juniors and 3 seniors and from those 27 students were interviewed. The standard was extremely high and the committee looks for students of outstanding ability, not only extremely sound academically, but also well rounded, excelling in their individual pastimes of sports, music and philanthropic endeavours. They need to be able to clearly articulate their interest in a career in the insurance sector so both the essay and the interview are extremely important to the review process.”
BFIS Overseas Scholarships were awarded to: Grace Francoeur (Finance / McGill, Canada), Ava Marshall (Finance / Queen’s, Canada), Sydney Mason (Politics and International Relations / Southampton, UK), Malini Romeo (Economics / British Columbia, Canada).
This year there were six ‘named’ awards from BFIS donor companies: the BFIS Argo Scholarship awarded to Somer Froud (IT Management / West of England, UK); the BFIS Aspen Scholarship to Amon Wedderburn (Insurance and Risk Management / St. John’s, USA); the BFIS AXIS Scholarship to Busayo Salawu (Actuarial Science / Southampton, UK); the BFIS MS Amlin Scholarships were awarded to Rajah Steede (Insurance and Risk Management / Georgia State, USA) and Miles Cave (Actuarial Science / Queen Mary, UK).
