This article recalls the origin of insurance Professionals Miami and thanks all the Miami Insurance Professionals that supported the project.
In 2013, Insurance Professionals Miami barely existed and was at a standstill. In 2011, Ricardo García (Nationale Suisse at the time) delivered a presentation, and for two years, little else happened.
At that time there was a basic LinkedIn page created in February 2012 with little content and only 17 followers. It wasn’t called (re) Insurance Professionals Miami either. It was called “Young Insurance Professionals Miami”. Re40s Miami chapter didn’t exist in Miami either.
The original idea was great but it needed an experienced marketing and business development professional in charge. At the time (2013), David Roig was working at a Miami insurance focused law firm. Due to that lack of conferences and activities, the director of that Miami law firm office tasked David (Roig was a renowned marketing consultant and speaker who had recently received the National Marketing Award in Spain thanks to a Thanksgiving Turkey project launched with Cascajares and Chef José Andrés) with putting all his marketing experience and know-how to work in order to strengthen and empower a networking group of insurance professionals in Miami.
When David Roig started and tried to revitalize the project, he began reaching out to Miami insurance professionals, he realized an important issue: Many insurance professionals did not want to join the networking events because they said they were “no longer young” and, as a result, did not feel comfortable or represented. At that point, at the branding strategy level, Roig proposed removing the word “Young” from the name/brand. It worked, many senior Miami Insurance professionals felt confortable and the name / brand still remains like that.
On the other hand, David Roig contacted Laura Cervera, a great graphic design professional from Valencia, Spain, and gave a detailed briefing on how he wanted the logo (at the time, none existed) for Insurance Professionals Miami without the word “young” as previusly expalined. (ipm current logo). Roig also thought about the better domain name to position it on Google and created the website/blog himself, which has been online for over a decade and contained all the information and history of the talks at Novecento. David also developed the SEO strategy. It is true that after many years, the design was not updated (Roig created that blog himself and he used his own photo camera), but all that content and the real origin has been also deleted and improperly re-written. A shame. Great news is that the still have many articles, photos, documents and facts clearly show how the true origin was. (After a great effort and the help of many Miami insurance professionals of the time, we have recovered some photographs)
At the same time, David Roig also professionalized Insurance Professionals Miami LinkedIn profile, which quickly grew from 17 followers to hundreds. He invested many hours of work sending invitations to all his LinkedIn contacts, and this, combined with quality content, significantly increased the group’s size.
David also travelled to many insurance hubs, attended many insurance related events and developed a powerful network of insurance professionals contacts and friends. He also propossed to organize seminars about the Latin American Insurance Market in London and Madrid.
On the other hand, David Roig negotiated a very attractive flat rate with Novecento Brickell (located there at Brickell Avenue, not at Mary Brickell Village) that included room rental (Malbec Room) drinks, and its famous Argentine empanadas. Consequently, new speakers were offered a new branding strategy and exposure in the Miami insurance market in exchange for a small financial investment. Novecento also offered a “hologram” with a 10% discount for Insurance Professionals Miami members. A post with this text was published by David Roig on the Insurance Professionals Miami blog he created and managed. It was announced like this: “For all of you usually attending our (re) Insurance Professionals Miami meetings, expect to be included into the Novecento family and get a 10% discount…”
The entire strategy was a resounding success. In fact, that discount was also promoted during the Miami (re) Insurance Week.
Launching a new project wasn’t easy. Some Miami insurance players did not want to participate or deliver conferences at that time even that David explained them the benefits and the return on investment.
Important note: We have updated the post with testimonials LinkedIn comments from Miami insurance professionals after reading the article.
The first to make a presentation at Novecento improved era was Carlos Rivera (then working at another Forensic Accounting firm). David Roig has been always very grateful to Carlos and other pionners for that support in the early days. Joining an established and renowned event is very easy, but starting from scratch is very complicated and requires a great effort and knowledge of the subject. (Marketing, networking, event management, branding, etc.)
Carlos Rivera’s conference was a huge success, and many more soon followed, almost monthly. José Miguel Varela (Advanta), Juan Guillermo Uribe (RTS), Ricardo McQuattie (AIG at the time), Carlos Boelsterli, and Guillermo Eslava (both at Swiss Re at the time), María José Cordovez (29th October 2013, Exclusion of defective design, materials and workmanship talk), Pieter Booth, etc. supported the talks.
Innovation, marketing strategy, brand positioning, and business generation have always been a constant for David Roig. For instance, on January 21th 2014, after one of the insurance networking talks at Novecento, a tasting of Chocolates Valor was held. (See photos below) Professional English courses were also raffled off.
The new strategy worked and talks took place for years at Novecento almost every month. To the aforementioned Miami insurance professionals we would like to thank all those who attended the meetings when David Roig called them at that time: Pablo Pin, Lope García, Javier Guardia, Luis Balestrini, Carlitos Martínez, Napoleón Montes, Esther Rodríguez, Arturo Falcón, Tony Matta, Santiago Jaramillo, Víctor Navarro, Luis Gabriel Gómez, Pedro Luis Quintero, Roberto Quintana, John Giralt, María Sanchís, Laura Tatyana Sánchez, David Hoffman, Louis de Segonzac, Héctor Guardado, Nelson Herández, José Astorqui, Carlos Davis, Pepe Márquez, Nydia Díaz, Manuel Moreno, Juan Calvache, Vicente Miranda, Manolo Camacho, Diana Pabón, Graham Curtis, Deborah Ganum, Uwe Fisher, Fulvio Martínez, Humberto Pozo, Leonardo Morales, Cari Olivieri, Francisco Narváez, Frank Padilla, April McLaughlin, Leonardo Garzón, Nicolas Saenz, Giuliano Montano, Monika Pérez, Juan Melo, Luis Meneses, Belén Navarro, Víctor Viqueira, Douglas Escobar, Tomás Fourcade, Melissa Tomalin and many other that where there at the beginning.
Special mention should be made of Lucas Palau, Rubén Reyes, Jorge Mere, Eva Flores, Daniel Padrón, Andrés Ávila, Rafael Calzadilla, Carolina Velasquez, Juan Pablo Peralta and Daniel Barón , co-workers and amazing people who physically supported David Roig whenever he asked them for help and useful collaboration, such as transporting materials such as large and heavy roll-ups and banners to Novecento!
Years later, when David Roig left the Miami law firm where he was working at the time, they asked him for the Insurance Professionals Miami´s blog and LinkedIn account´s users and passwords. Some months later, the Miami Insurance market noticed that David was not in charge anymore of Insurance Professionals Miami. Due to that, a prominent figure in the Miami insurance industry contacted him and suggested him to start something on his own, something truly independent, open to everyone, and not exclusively managed by a law firm. At the time, David Roig took note but did nothing. Later, someone else told him the same thing. Then another. And another. And thus iNLIP was born, the Independent Network of Latin American Insurance Professionals, with special emphasis on the “i” in independent. But that’s another story… as it is also another story the true origin of the Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum.
Time after the success of the Insurance Professionals Miami conferences at Novecento, David Roig was attending a Miami insurance networking event at Four Seasons Hotel in Brickell and someone introduced him to Juan López-Santini.
Because they both shared their passion for the motor world (among other things), a friendship quickly developed and later led to a collaboration to organize the Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum after a meeting at Novecento too.
In fact, in 2015, after the first edition of the Miami Claims Forum, Roig published a post about the real origin of the Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum. That article can still be seen and said:
“The idea for The Forum came out of one of those presentations, a breakfast discussion on Hurricane Odile claims in Mexico organized by QLDG and Kennedys which sparked an innocent conversation between us about our respective experiences in the region. This led to a three hour discussion about the current status of our industry, the economy and the changing legal and economic environment”
Behind the curtains, Roberto Quintana also worked really hard and has always been a great person, friend and professional. Lucas Palau, Marcos López and Ana Cristina too were key the first 2015 Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum edition.
In 2014 (it took one year of work to put all together) David Roig created the name/brand of the Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum, the name of the company that organized the Forum (Miami Professional Events), its structure, sponsorship policy, price policy, corporate image, (Brickell focused and colourful at that time) marketing strategy, brochures, banners, communications strategy, internal organization and coordiantion, satisfaction survey, negotiation with hotels, definition of the best dates, contact with suppliers to purchase the famous High Sierra backpack, media partnership with BN Americas, etc. Many didn’t believe in the project (“David, the insurance industry isn’t looking for that kind of events” he was told when he propossed the project in London) and the first year was very, very difficult to get started and find sponsors.
But the true Miami Latin American Claims (Re) Insurance Forum origin deserves a separate post…
Thank you all for your ongoing support!
If you have more photos about Insurance Professionals Miami conferences at Novecento at that time, please contact David Roig and we will update this post. : – D
If you attended those meetings and want to comment about that, follow this link: Comment your experience with Insurance Professionals Miami.
See all the comments made by Insurance Professionals from Miami
