And now, the end is near ...

Well not quite the end but perhaps the beginning of the end. On the 15th October, the judges will come together to decide who stands out the most from all the categories and who will walk away with the crown on the 26th November.

Which is pretty exciting - it's seems ages ago that we were calling for nominations and now here we are getting ready for the big night. But before we do, I have three final shortlists for you to muse over.

Now it's over to the judges and remember, there is one last chance for you to influence who they consider for the Outstanding Achievement Award.

And finally, I wanted to say a wee word about the event's charity partner, Insurance United Against Dementia. They are committed to raising ￡10m to fund critical research to take on the UK's biggest killer - dementia.

Globally, there are 50 million people living with dementia - two-thirds of them women. Women also bear the emotional and financial cost of supporting loved ones. They provide 70% of unpaid care hours, impacting their own wellbeing, their career, and their financial stability.

All the money raised on the evening will support transformational research, improving millions of lives - now and in the future.

But for now, I'm signing off until nearer the judging day but thanks to everyone for their engagement and enthusiasm for the Women in Insurance Awards and the fantastic women who are at its heart. It's been emotional ...

Category 1: Insurance Lawyer of the Year

Claire Bowler, DWF

After worrying that the law wasn’t for her, 21 years ago Claire found her niche in insurance law and has been there ever since. As global head of the insurance sector for DWF, she sat on the strategic board until 2019, playing a key role in the firm’s stock market flotation, a first for any law firm.

Helen Devery, BLM

Helen worked her way up from junior solicitor level to now having a seat on the executive board. Heading up the regulatory team, she has seen a number of her mentees over the years eventually reach partnership level and even takes her mentoring skills out to young school girls.

Paula Jefferson, BLM

Representing insurers for her full 25-year career, Paula specialises (but not exclusively) in sexual abuse cases and has played a key role in developing a proposed protocol for abuse-related claims and is a member of the FOIL abuse special interest group. She also plays an important role in improving social mobility across her firm.

Kishan Mangat, DWF

Having worked in government legal services and doing pro bono work at the Waterloo Legal Advice Centre, Kishan eventually chose to focus on insurance law because of the breadth of work it entails. A founding member of iCAN, Kishan devotes a lot of her time to recognising and supporting the careers of black, Asian and ethnic minority colleagues in the insurance industry.

Claire Petts, Clyde & Co

Claire has been working in insurance since she qualified in 1999 and was particularly drawn to the healthcare sector and medical malpractice litigation. Such is her expertise in this area that she was selected by a number of brokers and insurers to represent the insurance market on the CJC working party into fixed recoverable costs in clinical negligence.

Victoria Rowlands, Chubb

After 11 years in private practice, Victoria found (to her surprise) that she had a real love for reinsurance litigation so joined Chubb to pursue that passion. Now the global head of reinsurance legal, Victoria has built a team that is two-thirds female, something of a rarity in her profession, and she places great emphasis on her team getting the development and mentoring support they need to progress.

Vivienne Williams, BLM

As her firm’s managing partner, Vivienne is responsible for the operational and financial wellbeing of the company but she is also responsible for driving innovation. She has introduced a data analytics team, played a key role in introducing AI-led solutions for the insurance industry, sits on the firm’s EDI steering committee and runs the employee forum.

Samantha Wright, Weightmans

Working in the casualty team at Weightmans, Samantha primarily assists a Partner of the firm with stress at work claims for insurers. An active supporter of her local insurance institute, she was selected to sit on the committee for Women in Manchester Insurance Network and is also a committee member of the continuous professional development committee for the Manchester Insurance Institute.

Category 2: Role Model of the Year

Sarah Applegate, Aviva

Sarah persuaded her director, who calls her chief of GSD (getting stuff done) that a new role was required in the business – strategic project lead. She seeks out projects and strategic work that others have not been able to get over the line previously, and her track record so far proves that her instinct and her director’s faith in her, was correct.

Debbie Cannon, Freedom Services

Fed up with a career in catering, Debbie decided to give insurance a go 16 years ago and hasn’t looked back since. She has undertaken a huge variety of roles in that time in claims, fraud and now marketing. As an out trans woman, Debbie makes a point of being a visible role model to other LGBT people to show that they can be themselves, be successful and be happy.

Victoria Carter, Guy Carpenter & Company

As a member of her firm’s executive committee and UK board, Victoria was elected to Lloyd’s Council in 2019, is a Member of the Lloyd’s Nominations and Governance Committee, Chairman Elect of the Lloyd’s Charities Trust, Board Member of the Lloyd’s Community Programme and Court Member of the Worshipful Company of Insurers. As someone who went into broking in 1979 because she was prohibited from being an underwriter (no, really!), she really does show what is possible if you want to make it happen.

Catherine Drummond, LCP

Catherine is one of 26 female partners at LCP and the only female partner in the insurance practice. She co-founded her firm's LGBT+ network, organised and chaired the Institute and Faculty of Actuaries' London insurance conference in 2019 ensuring that diversity was at the heart of it. She also led LCP's first Pride march this year and has made a point of being visible and vocal on LGBT+ issues.

Khayala Eylazova, PwC UK

Having worked in the tech industry and now insurance, Khayala’s passion for D&I is driven by the fact that it is so hard to secure genuine equality in these industries. She founded the Women in Insurance Technology programme to attract the best people to work in tech in insurance which has resulted in a more than 10% increase in the number of women in tech in PwC. Not bad going at all.

Anita Fernqvist, Zurich

As a female chief data officer, Anita is something of a rarity. She is responsible for data, analytics, robotics continuous improvement and the customer function in her business. She regularly speaks at women in insurance events, serves as an ambassador and speaker to women in tech organisations, chairs the Women’s Innovation network and has contributed to the government consultation on working families. If ever a discipline needed a strong female role model, it is IT and Anita is doing her utmost to be that.

Maxine Goddard, Zurich

Maxine is the head of strategic delivery for the UK COO office at Zurich and is responsible for strategic initiatives from change and transformation to planning. She is currently director of the company’s 2.0 transformation programme, special advisor to the Zurich Multicultural Network (supporting BAME employees) and is responsible for external partnerships at iCAN. That’s not to mention her substantial professional achievements and responsibilities.

Kelly Ogley, A Plan

With her “slight scouse accent” and her approach to management, Kelly doesn’t think she comes across as a typical COO. Responsible for 1,200 people including 95 branch managers, she is passionate about instilling belief in her team and can point to several personal and professional challenges to show what is possible. She has done the job her team do, became a single parent and now sits on the board, proving that what she tells her team can actually be done.

Judy O'Neill, Travelers Europe

Leading over 100 people in the claims organisation, Judy, a single mother of 14-year-old triplets, says she is driven by fairness, ensuring that everyone feels they belong and have an equal opportunity to succeed. Leading by example, she works a full-time flexible schedule and encourages her team to do the same (if it suits) and says that her professional progress provides a great example of why it’s not necessary to choose a career over everything else.

Suneeta Padda, Padda Consulting 

Deciding one day at the age of 36 that life was too short, Suneeta overcame significant personal and cultural hurdles to carve out a career that gave her the purpose she craved. Since that day, she has worked with a number of international firms, led international compliance teams and helped organisations get moving in the right direction, under her consultation. She now spends time with young men and women from various cultural backgrounds including young professionals who might be forced into arranged marriages (as she was) to others who find it hard to stand up to their managers, helping them deal with all these types of situations at work.

Joanne Safo, Munich Re Digital Partners

Joanne is responsible for heading up the global technology function for Munich Re Digital Partners, she is another who is challenging assumptions of what women can achieve in the tech space. She sits on the global leadership team and was recently named as one of the CII’s multi-cultural role models in the London Market.

Catrin Shi, The Insurance Insider

A long-time writer and commentator on the insurance industry, Catrin makes a point of not just holding it to account but supporting it and helping it improve. This was the motivation behind her launch of the Insider Progress event. But she also holds a senior position within her publishing firm and it is through these two roles that she hopes to inspire other women to be great leaders.

Category 3: Contribution to Gender Diversity Award

Bought By Many

Although a relatively small and young company, Bought By Many has had diversity as a priority from the start. This is evident in the numbers they can boast – 44% of employees are female, 50% of the leadership team are female, 6.5% take advantage of flexible or part time hours and they actively seek to recruit and develop women with tech skills, discipline that is sorely lacking in female representation.

Chartered Institute of Loss Adjusters

When they started their Women in CILA campaign back in 2015, only 4% of chartered loss adjusters were women and only one council member was female, so it was clear that change was required. Since then, they now have three female council members, have driven a 37% increase in women attaining chartered status, created development and networking events across the country and have increased awareness of career opportunities for women in loss adjusting. There is a long way to go but the progress to date is laudable.

Co-op Insurance

The vision is to be the most trusted, inclusive and progressive people team in the UK by 2023. Lofty ambitions indeed but they are already on their way. They have created INspire – a community that promotes equality and believes that all women have a right to equality in Co-op Insurance. The group challenges business leaders to support female colleagues, raise awareness of issues that affect women, help women increase their professional network, learn new skills and support others in their careers.

Crawford & Company

Crawford & Company certainly took on a challenge when they decided to help the construction industry to diversify. The Crawford’s Contractor Connection Foundation is designed to help plug the skills shortage the industry faces by promoting a more sustainable and diverse industry. In partnership with the National Association of Women in Construction, Crawford’s helps to push the wider agenda through site visits, seminars, workshops and industry-related events.

Gender Inclusion Network

The Gender Inclusion Network (GIN) is led by 21 individuals from multiple companies operating within and with the insurance industry. GIN runs events throughout the year centred around stimulating debate, raising awareness and encouraging talking points around gender balance, and providing ways to respond to bias. And in 2018 they supported the launch of Balance, a programme aimed at encouraging male middle managers to act as agents of change in achieving gender balance.

Marsh UK & Ireland

Marsh launched a global diversity talent programme to engage, retain and develop high potential diverse talent with 80% of participants in the latest intake being female. The company also has five Colleague Resource Groups covering different aspects of diversity including gender, culture, mental health, LGBT and young professionals to meet long term and clearly targeted diversity ambitions.

PwC

PwC focuses on two dimensions in its D&I initiative: valuing differences and gender, particularly in the latter as although because 48% of its global workforce at all levels is female, this is not reflected at leadership level. The company aims to lead by example and as such, built a campaign on its #Inclusive Insurance manifesto and has encouraged a number of FTSE 100 FS firms and StartupBootcamp to pledge for #TechShe Can charter.

Travelers Europe

In January Travelers became the first insurance company in the UK to receive ‘Clear Assured’ overall Bronze standard from The Clear Company, an auditor of inclusive best practices, and in June they went one step farther and secured the Silver Standard. As well as the establishment of a women’s diversity network they have created inclusive leadership training workshops, language of inclusion training for all senior leaders and sexual harassment training for managers and employees.

Tara for now.