'I nearly choked on my champers'

Hail to the chief
One of the nice things about working in insurance is that it is full of little surprises, even for those of us who have been doing it for rather longer than we care to remember. One of the weather-related claims RSA suffered recently was hailstone damage to 91 cars at a Peugeot garage it insures in Hinckley, which caught even UK chief executive Adrian Brown off-guard. “That’s a new one even for me, after 20-odd years in the business,” he said.

Murray fully covered
I enjoyed watching the dramatic Olympic tennis final between Andy Murray and Roger Federer, but I nearly choked on my champers when I saw several other insurance heavyweights in the crowd too. As the camera panned across the crowd, I saw AXA boss Amanda Blanc, LV= managing director John O’Roarke, LV= operations director Peter Horton and Autoglass director Andre May all cheering Murray’s victory.

Grappling with success
Congratulations are also in order for Mitsui Sumitomo employee Yoshie Ueno, who claimed an Olympic bronze medal in the women’s under 63kg judo competition last week. I understand that Yoshie is also a double world champion in the category.

Joy de vivre
I think I may have discovered the secret to Allianz UK’s almost infuriatingly consistent underwriting results. I hear chief executive Andrew Torrance has holidayed in the same part of the south of France for several years running. I can only assume it is the location’s restorative properties that enable such vigilance. Well, Andrew, if it ain’t broke …

Her latest flame
Thompson Heath & Bond’s head of compliance Catherine Nicoll was one of the final Olympic torchbearers before the flame finally reached the main stadium for the opening ceremony, and I’m told that Catherine took the torch to THB’s Leadenhall Street office, and that brokers were queuing up to have their photo taken with it.

Ping pong patron
Patronage from my pal Warren Buffett isn’t handed out lightly, so American Olympic table-tennis hopeful Ariel Hsing can count herself lucky. Warren met Ariel when she was nine, and the two struck up a friendship. She regularly plays table tennis at Berkshire Hathaway annual meetings against all challengers, and it’s no surprise that no insurance bods have beaten her yet.