Giarini, Sellitsch Named to Insurance Hall of Fame

The International Insurance Society announced that Orio Giarini, of Switzerland’s Geneva Association and Siegfried Sellitsch of Austria’s Wiener Staedtische have been named to the prestigious Insurance Hall of Fame. They will be honored in Chicago, July 17, 2006, at the IIS annual seminar of the at the Westin Chicago River North hotel.

“Orio Giarini, the first Secretary General of The Geneva Association, is being honoured for his work in developing the organization into the premier risk and insurance research institute, an organization highly respected throughout the insurance industry worldwide,” said the announcement. “His innovative concepts have influenced the insurance world and general thinking about risk and insurance economics. His academic endeavors include associate professorships of economics at the European Institute of the University of Geneva, and the University of Geneva.

“Dr. Siegfried Sellitsch, who joined Wiener Staedtische in 1966, has enjoyed a long and productive career as the “face” of the insurance industry in Austria and throughout Europe, particularly pioneering in Eastern European countries. He has been active in the Austrian Insurance Association, has served on the Boards of the Austrian Actuarial Society and the Vienna University of Technology and he has been a constant voice on Austrian financial policy.”

In Hong Kong the IIS will also honor “Arthur Bailey (1905-1954), the pioneer in using the ‘Bayesian approach’ to credibility theory for property-liability insurance companies. He will receive the Dr. John S. Bickley Founders’ Award Gold Medal for Excellence, named in honor of the Founder of the International Insurance Society and an Emeritus Professor at the University of Alabama in the USA.”

The bulletin noted that the “Insurance Hall of Fame is sponsored in New York by the International Insurance Society, Inc., a non-profit educational enterprise of insurance executives with almost 1000 members representing 90 nations. The Insurance Hall of Fame was instituted in 1957 by the Griffith Foundation for Insurance Education, Columbus, Ohio and later moved to The University of Alabama.

“There are 116 laureates in the Insurance Hall of Fame, including the most recent, from over 20 countries. The qualifications for installation in the Hall of Fame include exceptional contributions to the advancement of insurance locally or globally and innovation in developing insurance benefits for the well being of society and individuals. Members are selected by the membership of the International Insurance Society in a secret, independently-audited ballot.”

Topics Europe