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The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) is planning to expand its volunteer and charitable services to the Boston and New England region. The foundation will hold an informational meeting in Boston this month to introduce IICF to the local insurance community and discuss charitable opportunities in Boston and surrounding areas.
The IICF’s Northeast Division is now in its fifth year of service, the IICF’s executive director Myatt said. “For the first five years, we’ve been working to get established, starting in New York City and the New York tri-state area.”
“But when the division was created, we always had plans to expand across the Northeast once we had things underway in the New York tri-state area,” she said. “And from the very beginning, we had particular interest in the Boston area since it is such an important business and insurance hub. In 2012, we plan to make the expansion a reality if at all possible.”
Two Boston-based insurance leaders will be spearheading the IICF’s expansion effort — Patrick Rastiello, senior managing director at Aon Benfield, and Jim Wallace, vice president at Aspen Specialty Insurance. The two executives will host the upcoming IICF informational meeting.
The goal for this meeting, Myatt explained, is to assess interest — with the hopes of forming a Boston/New England chapter and serve that community, in the same way that New York and the tri-state area has been giving back to communities through grants, volunteer services and leadership. “We would work with the Boston insurance community to give back to the local area there. So that would be the goal if we were to establish a chapter in Boston.”
In addition to the information session, the foundation plans to launch in Boston the IICF Week of Giving, from Oct. 13 to 20.
“We definitely want to line up projects where people in the Boston area can come out and join the week of Oct. 13 through 20 to provide volunteer services in their community,” Myatt said. “We are working to get charities signed up on our website from Boston and the surrounding areas so that we can encourage teams of volunteers to join the thousands of other insurance professionals around the country that will be coming out and volunteering that week.”
Founded in 1994, the IICF has been helping communities and enriching lives by combining the collective strengths of the insurance industry to provide grants, volunteer service and leadership through the collaboration of insurance companies, reinsurance companies, employees, agents and brokers, and strategic partners of the industry.
The IICF currently has four divisions: California/West, New York/Northeast, Midwestern and Texas/Southeast. The foundation is completely directed and funded by the insurance industry. For more information, visit the foundation’s website, www.iicf.org.