Broking - the stuff childhood dreams are made of?

As the new school year starts and the latest round of tearful parents wave their children off at the gates, their hearts full of hope that their little darling will eventually emerge from the education system as a brain surgeon or barrister, it seems as opportune a moment as any to ponder why broking is not the stuff childhood dreams are made of.

After all, I wouldn't imagine that any of you rushed home from school to play insurance-related games, pricing the risks in your street, setting up a Lloyd's style box in your bedroom, pleading your parents to swap your toy spacesuit for a three-piece pinstripe affair or your BMX for a briefcase, and if you did then I'd be more than a little worried. And, when you did fall into this field, I don't for one moment think you made all your parents' career-driven dreams come true - unless you were starting in your own family-run brokerage business of course!

So, just why is that? Yes, insurance has a grey-suited image, but then again so does banking, law and accountancy and they, for some unfathomable reason, have always been deemed to be the more attractive, although goodness knows why when you think of the myriad of mind-numbing tasks they can involve.

For every single hotshot lawyer working on a genuinely important high-profile case, there are hundreds of thousands more slaving away over property rights documents, deciding whether your neighbour really has the right to cut that hedge / tree or not. Likewise in journalism, for every Kate Aide-style correspondent reporting from a war torn corner of the world, there are loads more writing about school fetes, Women's Institute fund raisers or god forbid insurance (joke!).  

Now, I'm not saying that we should abandon childhood dreams of becoming rock stars or Hollywood A-listers, I for one still have a secret yearning to headline Glastonbury despite a lack of any discernible musical talent, but when parents and school careers advisers think about some of the more 'realistic' careers ahead for their children, then they shouldn't rule out insurance.

After all, if I'd have known about the fortunes that could be made and the variety of careers available then I might have opted for working in, rather than just commenting on, insurance.

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• Broker

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