T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce

This week, the T&T?Cham­ber be­gins a three-part se­ries which re­pro­duces the bi­ogra­phies of the three in­ductees for 2012 to its Busi­ness Hall of Fame dur­ing a gala cer­e­mo­ny held on No­vem­ber 10, 2012.

To the late Ge­of­frey In­gle­field, "in­sur­ance" meant in­fi­nite­ly more than a ca­reer and a busi­ness. It was the are­na in which he demon­strat­ed his val­ues of love and fam­i­ly, hard work, dis­ci­pline, hon­esty, fair­ness, and above all, trust - a qual­i­ty that un­der­pins the suc­cess of the in­sur­ance in­dus­try.

In all as­pects of his life "dic­tum meum pactum"- "my word is my bond"-de­fined the prin­ci­ple of his busi­ness deal­ings and set the stan­dard of in­tegri­ty for the in­dus­try.

These val­ues would be­come syn­ony­mous with the man and his com­mit­ment to the ser­vice of his many busi­ness re­la­tion­ships and nu­mer­ous so­cial caus­es, and his ser­vice to T&T.

In times of dis­as­ter, in mat­ters of life and death, these qual­i­ties were of ul­ti­mate im­por­tance to his cus­tomers. His val­ues helped build a Caribbean in­sur­ance firm that could boast of be­ing "the most trust­ed name in in­sur­ance through­out the Caribbean."

Born in Trinidad on June 19, 1924, his qual­i­ties were nur­tured from an ear­ly age by his fa­ther, Har­ry Roberts In­gle­field, a char­tered ac­coun­tant who had left the Unit­ed King­dom in the 1920s to work in Venezuela and even­tu­al­ly set­tled in Trinidad with his wife, Ruth Elsie Nock.

Ge­of­frey In­gle­field grad­u­at­ed from Queen's Roy­al Col­lege with an out­stand­ing record in both aca­d­e­mics and sport. He held the 100-me­tre and 200-me­tre school records in track un­til they were bro­ken many years lat­er by Wen­dell Mot­t­ley. An avid and pas­sion­ate ten­nis play­er well in­to his de­clin­ing years, Ge­off was ranked No 2 and rep­re­sent­ed T&T in 1950 and 1955, and cap­tained the Bran­don Cup Team be­fore go­ing on to rep­re­sent the West In­dies in the Davis Cup in 1954, and cap­tain­ing the West In­dies Davis Cup team in 1969.

The val­ues of dis­ci­pline and sports­man­ship were to de­fine and shape his ca­reer in the in­sur­ance busi­ness.

Ge­off start­ed his work­ing life at Pan Amer­i­can Air­ways fly­ing boat ter­mi­nal in Co­corite and lat­er at Pi­ar­co Air­port as a flight dis­patch­er, where he al­so qual­i­fied as a me­te­o­rol­o­gist and se­cured his fly­ing li­cense. An­oth­er pas­sion he would of­ten an­i­mat­ed­ly talk about. As he would about his stint as an army re­serve dur­ing the WWII.

He be­gan his in­sur­ance ca­reer on May 1, 1948, with Hunter, Smith and Earl, the lo­cal agents of Na­tion­al Em­ploy­ers' Mu­tu­al Gen­er­al In­sur­ance As­so­ci­a­tion. He spent two years work­ing and train­ing in their UK of­fice from 1951.

Cre­at­ing an in­dus­try leader

On Jan­u­ary 1, 1960, a lo­cal­ly reg­is­tered com­pa­ny, NEM (West In­dies) In­sur­ance Ltd (Nemwil) was launched with In­gle­field as di­rec­tor and gen­er­al man­ag­er. Three years lat­er, he was ap­point­ed man­ag­ing di­rec­tor.

Un­der his lead­er­ship, Nemwil would be­come the in­dus­try leader in ser­vice and in­no­va­tion. The ethos of trust, in­tegri­ty, re­spon­si­bil­i­ty dis­ci­pline and com­pas­sion were imbed­ded in the cul­ture of his or­gan­i­sa­tion and, by ex­ten­sion, the brand of his busi­ness. He loved peo­ple and took plea­sure in be­ing there for them in their mo­ment of great­est need.

His tenure as man­ag­ing di­rec­tor was marked by sev­er­al pi­o­neer­ing and in­no­v­a­tive ini­tia­tives. His keen sense of the mar­ket al­so led him to de­vel­op rein­sur­ance arrange­ments that built the un­der­ly­ing strength of one of the most re­li­able in­sur­ance com­pa­nies in the re­gion. His un­shak­able com­mit­ment to ser­vice and good faith cre­at­ed a bond of re­spect and trust be­tween Nemwil and its cus­tomers that en­dured for gen­er­a­tions.

In­gle­field was wide­ly known and re­spect­ed through­out the Caribbean for his lead­er­ship and busi­ness acu­men in es­tab­lish­ing and pro­mot­ing Nemwil. For decades, he was an ex­em­plar in the field and was wide­ly recog­nised as the "Best Gen­er­al In­sur­ance Prac­ti­tion­er in the West In­dies".

His com­mit­ment to pro­mot­ing pro­fes­sion­al­ism in the in­dus­try was demon­strat­ed through his many years of ac­tive sup­port and in­volve­ment in the Acad­e­my of In­sur­ance.

While many in­ter­na­tion­al in­sur­ers were re­duc­ing their ex­po­sure to cat­a­stro­phe risks in the Caribbean, Ge­off In­gle­field ex­pand­ed. Nemwil was the first T&T com­pa­ny to es­tab­lish agents in Be­lize, the British Vir­gin Is­lands and Unit­ed States Vir­gin Is­lands, ter­ri­to­ries that oth­ers con­sid­ered too risky.

In 1984, he was made chair­man, a po­si­tion he would oc­cu­py un­til re­tire­ment on De­cem­ber 13, 1994. By then Nemwil was the mar­ket leader with an en­vi­able rep­u­ta­tion as the first in­sur­ance com­pa­ny in T&T to earn an In­ter­na­tion­al AM Best rat­ing of 'A' ex­cel­lent.

See Ta­ble

Ul­ti­mate­ly, Ge­off In­gle­field's great and in­spir­ing con­tri­bu­tion to busi­ness and so­ci­ety came from the love and hap­pi­ness in his fam­i­ly life.

His life-long part­ner was his wife Katharine "Kit­ty" Is­abel Skin­ner, whose nick­name came from the name of her birth­place, St Kitts. She co-found­ed of the ad­ver­tis­ing com­pa­ny Trin­i­ty Ad­ver­tis­ing, the Caribbean Flower Shop and was al­so very ac­tive in nu­mer­ous so­cial caus­es. To­geth­er, Ge­off and Kit­ty raised nine chil­dren who gave them the joy of 24 grand­chil­dren.

Their love en­dured to Au­gust 6, 2011, when, in a space of four hours, they died peace­ful­ly in the em­brace of their chil­dren and grand­chil­dren.

The T&T?Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce was, in­deed, ho­n­oured to in­duct Ge­of­frey R In­gle­field in­to its Busi­ness Hall of Fame.

Through­out his ca­reer, In­gle­field was at the top of in­dus­try lead­er­ship and pub­lic ser­vice:

Pres­i­dent, Ju­nior Cham­ber of Com­merce of PoS (1958)

Pres­i­dent, West In­dies Ju­nior Cham­ber (1962)

Com­mis­sion di­rec­tor, Ju­nior Cham­ber In­ter­na­tion­al (1964)

Pres­i­dent, T&T Cham­ber of Com­merce Inc. (1970)

Pres­i­dent, T&T In­sur­ance In­sti­tute (1960, 1965)

Di­rec­tor of the Ro­tary Club of Port-of-Spain (1962–1975)

Mem­ber, ex­ec­u­tive com­mit­tee, In­sur­ance As­so­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean (1974–1979)

Hon­orary sec­re­tary, Duke of Ed­in­burgh's Award Scheme T&T (1967)

Chair­man, Duke of Ed­in­burgh's Award Scheme T&T (Re­named Pres­i­dent's Award T&T in 1976) (1972–1987)

First pres­i­dent, Caribbean Award Scheme Coun­cil 1977–1979

Pres­i­dent, As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies (At­tic) (1977–1979)

Gov­er­nor of the Acad­e­my of In­sur­ance (1978)

Board mem­ber, Air Trans­port Li­cens­ing Au­thor­i­ty (1975–1983)

Board mem­ber, Wa­ter and Sew­er­age Au­thor­i­ty (1981–1983)

Chair­man, Red­if­fu­sion (West In­dies) Ltd, Red­if­fu­sion (Trinidad) Ltd, Trinidad Broad­cast­ing Com­pa­ny Ltd

Di­rec­tor, T&T In­sur­ance Ltd.

Di­rec­tor of Roy­al Bank of T&T Ltd.

Chair­man, Hard­ware and Oil­field Equip­ment Com­pa­ny Lt­d­Di­rec­tor, Neal and Massy Hold­ings Ltd.

Di­rec­tor, Bar­ba­dos Mu­tu­al Life As­sur­ance So­ci­ety

Di­rec­tor, BH Rose Ltd

Di­rec­tor, Guyana and Trinidad Mu­tu­al In­sur­ance

Tow­er­ing con­tri­bu­tions

Ge­off In­gle­field's tow­er­ing con­tri­bu­tions were recog­nised and ho­n­oured lo­cal­ly and in­ter­na­tion­al­ly through sev­er­al awards of dis­tinc­tion from in­dus­try, the Ro­tary Club and the Gov­ern­ment of T&T in­clud­ing:

Cer­tifi­cate of Ap­pre­ci­a­tion for out­stand­ing ser­vices as a pres­i­dent of the T&T?In­sur­ance In­sti­tute (TTIA) (1977)

Sil­ver Award, TTIA (1982)

In­sur­ance Hall of Fame (TTIA)

Paul Har­ris Fel­low Award by the Ro­tary Foun­da­tion of Ro­tary In­ter­na­tion­al (1982)

In­duct­ed to Hon­orary Life Mem­ber­ship in the In­sur­ance As­so­ci­a­tion of the Caribbean (IAC) (1999)

Cha­co­nia Medal (Gold) from the Re­pub­lic of T&T for Com­mu­ni­ty Ser­vice (1977)