The long summer

The long summer blazed on this August and the silly season reached its peak, with insurers and brokers disappearing for their regular two weeks holiday. Alas Mike Williams, outgoing chief executive of the British Insurance Brokers'Association, is still hard at work, the trade body refusing to let him out for the day to promote forthcoming commercial venture Total Broker Solutions. Overheard wouldn't mind but the journalists were promised quad biking!

Meanwhile, BIBA's search for a replacement continues. Overheard can see how this would be quite a task - Williams is outgoing in more ways than one. Peter Staddon, head of technical services, is bearing the brunt and recently reached breaking point, refusing all calls for a day. Overheard hopes he forgot all about it on his holiday.

Hats off to leading broker Carole Nash for her no-nonsense approach to the work/life balance, however. Nash, who makes all her staff take the Insurance Foundation Certificate, has no insurance qualifications. She explained: "My husband encouraged me to do it but you know what it's like, as soon as your husband tells you to do something you don't. While he was studying for the Fellowship, I joined the local tennis team. We won the Essex Junior Cup." Glad to hear it wasn't a waste of time - although Overheard has to admit bypassing the qualifications hasn't done Nash much harm.

Overheard's thoughts are with Estelle Kirby, communications manager at the Primary Group, who ran into trouble with the cover picture for the company's results brochure. First she chose a Japanese lady, only to find that the image is used to advertise beer in the US. Her next choice of image had already been used by World.com, not exactly a positive association.

Eventually she was 'forced' to get a male model into the office for the day.

Mark Bayliss, who handles PR for The London Underwriting Centre, also regaled Overheard this month, with tales of his previous career as a live TV sub-editor. After a few years of 16-deadline-an-hour days Bayliss was happy to trade it in for something a little less frenetic. Perhaps the LUC should throw more work at him.

And finally, we hope Richard Sheikh is pleased with the photos we have used of him in this month's PB. Apparently he wasn't happy with the photos used of him after the British Insurance Awards. However, Overheard thinks it is nice to see a happy, smiley face, particularly on someone who has just won a BIA gong!