The Insurance Institute of Guernsey was founded in 1984 and we are proudly celebrating our 25th anniversary in 2009 - the Institute has lots to celebrate and lots to be proud of.

Our membership now exceeds 300, around 25% of our members have achieved the highest insurance qualification and we have lots of members who are working their way towards a professional qualification. I perceive that standards in our industry in Guernsey are increasing, not only because we need to continually improve to beat the competition but because so many employers, customers and employees recognise that achieving a professional qualification, when combined with good practical experience, really does make a difference to business performance. In these tough times, good experience and professional training really count.

Your designatory letters set you apart from the crowd and I would encourage all our members to use them. Professional qualifications are not easy to obtain. They all involve hard work and personal sacrifice and by using your deserved qualification in your written correspondence, reports and the like you will show others that you have achieved a professional standard recognised worldwide.

To help our industry in Guernsey to be recognised as a true profession, it would be great if we could make it our aim to help all customer facing staff and as many others as possible, to achieve the CertCII, CertPFS or CertCII (Life & Pensions) as minimum standards, depending upon which area they work in - what can you do to help make this happen?