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The Finity Team

Story and picture from John Heath’s InsuranceNewsAustralia.com issue of 11 November 2011

Finity joined with other members of the insurance and finance services sectors to Beat the Bosses and earn the CREATE Foundation $120,000 for needy children and young people in out-of-home care – foster, residential or kinship care.

On Wednesday 9 November 2011 hundreds of supporters gathered at the The Ivy, Sydney, for the annual insurance and finance services supported “Beat the bosses” trivia quiz night.

They all had the one aim to improve the lives of children and young people in care.

More than 35,000 youngsters in Australia are living in care with this number increasing by 9% each year.

In its second year, the “Beat the bosses” night of networking and “nonsense with a conscience” delivered on putting the “fun” in fundraising.

The result exceeded last year’s raising with by achieving $120,000 which will go towards the CREATE Your Future program.

The 2011 “Beat the bosses” winning team was Finity, with second place to Melissa Widner’s table, and third place to AMPCI table.

This year’s supporters read like a Who’s Who of insurance and financial services. They included Stephen Dunne, MD of AMPCI, Colin Fagen, CEO Australian Operations QBE, Rob De Souza, president of Aon Benfield, David Brown, COO of Wesfarmers, Nick Kirk, CEO of Calliden, Estelle Pearson, MD of Finity, Heinrich Eder, MD of Munich Re, Niran Peiris, Chief GM at Allianz, and Shane Doyle, CEO of Zurich.

Other leaders were Mark Lingafelter, MD of Chubb, Michael Harden, CEO of Willis Re, Peter Wedgewood, MD of Assetinsure, Andrew Reeves, Partner at KPMG, Anthony Fleetwood, Acting CEO & GM – Corporate Services at Employers Mutual, Geoff Black, CEO of Investments at TAL, Lachlan McKeough, CEO of Austbrokers, Mark Senkevics, MD of Swiss Re, Noel Condon, CEO of Chartis and other senior staff members from Tokio, Berkley, PMA Solutions, Finity, Sparke Helmore, Ansvar and ARPC.

Special guests included CREATE Foundation patron, David Hill. The event was sponsored by Accenture, Steadfast and PMA Solutions.

“Our focus this year is to help young people with a care experience to reach their full potential,” said Jacqui Reed, CEO, CREATE Foundation.

“The insurance and finance services industries again came to the fore to support kids in care.

“This industry support enables us to provide young people with opportunities to experience and learn in areas they would otherwise not have been able to access.”

Opera Australia’s principal artist and CREATE ambassador, tenor Stephen Smith pushed guests to the limit of their operatic knowledge.

With zero hours of sleep, walking through muddy trails, navigating through heavy fog in the dark, “Team High Maintenance” consisting of four actuaries - Stephen Lau and Lynn Bui from Finity, Daniel Leung from Zurich, Keri Lee from PwC - walked a total of 100km from Brooklyn up in the Hawkesbury River to Mosman to cross the finish line in 29 hours 18 minutes on August 28 for the Oxfam Trailwalker Sydney 2011. It didn’t start off in the best way with Keri coming down with a big flu the night before and having to take numerous cold and flu tablets, but we all managed to make it to the starting line on the day before, and even managing to get Finity in the spotlight in the official photos:

(Above) Our goal was achieved in getting our photo taken at the starting line

We were flying through the first few checkpoints, until the injuries started to become apparent by the 50km mark: Keri had blisters, Daniel was cramping up and Lynn’s legs were getting sore (for some reason Stephen was immune to all these effects until at the 80km mark where his left knee started hurting and had to hobble around). It was slow progress and by 80km we were 1 hour behind our schedule in making 30 hours. However, through good food provided by our support team, mutual encouragement, and a certain sponsor promising to donate extra dollars if we complete under 30 hours, we ignored the pain and injuries and ploughed on to complete the rest of the trail in record time.
 

(Above) And at the 100km finish, we still look fresh and energetic!

Along with Finity’s generous contribution, the team managed to raise an amazing $7000 for Oxfam to fight against poverty and injustice around the world. The team has vowed to repeat their efforts in next year’s Trailwalker 2012 to beat this years’ time and also the fundraising amount as well!

Following previous efforts with green drinks and pink drinks, on Friday August 26 in our Sydney office we got together to raise money for the Red Cross over RED food and RED drinks ably prepared by our army of volunteers coordinated by Mel Hall.  With the entry fee being a donation of $5 if you were wearing something red*, or $10 if not, there was a great selection of food, drinks and fashion to match. 

A wide range of red outfits were worn (sadly – or possibly just as well for some - no photographic evidence was retained), and prizes were awarded for a range of outstanding contribution to haute couture (and some that might not quite have made that grade).  Our resident DJ’s (notably Kane, Carmen and Gae) did a great job keeping the red themed tunes spinning all night long.   Lady in Red was thankfully only played once!

It was a fun way to help raise $665 for Red Cross Australia, $372 of which came from personal donations (Sydney,  Melbourne and Auckland combined) and the balance from the firm “Giving Back” budget. 

You might be surprised to hear that in 2012 we are thinking about a novel theme for this event, like blue drinks. 

* Of course, the fine print in the invitation had to read “Red garment must be visible and represent at least 20% of your outfit” – no doubting these actuaries and insurance people and their capacity to spot a loophole!