The British Insurance Brokers’ Association (BIBA) has been named Trade Association of the Year at the prestigious Trade Association Forum Best Practice Awards. BIBA also won the Commercial Initiative and Exhibition categories at the awards.
BIBA beat 37other associations to be named Trade Association of Year 2009. The judges said that BIBA’s activities were the hallmark of an association that pursues, and achieves, excellence in all their activities whether that be sector representation, communicating with members or undertaking commercial activity.
The judges were keen to acknowledge that BIBA had achieved everything with only 16 staff which was “a truly remarkable performance”.
BIBA Chief Executive, Eric Galbraith, said: “This is an excellent example of how BIBA is achieving success on behalf of members. This award is a testament to the hard work of the BIBA team and we are delighted to receive recognition from our trade association peers. Our challenge now is to continue to improve even further.”
The awards, hosted by the Trade Association Forum, received 100 entries and were presented at a ceremony at London’s Intercontinental Hotel on 29 July.
BIBA was also a finalist in the Electronic Communication Award, Magazine Award, Newsletter Award, Sector Representation Award, Social Initiative Award and Website Award categories.
Trade Association of the Year
Winner: British Insurance Brokers’ Association
The Award for the Trade Association was strongly contested this year with no one association dominating the individual awards. However, it was last year’s runner’s up the British Insurance Brokers’ Association that shone through with all of the eight entries they submitted making the finals and a number of them narrowly missing out on the top award.
The judges concurred that this was the hallmark of an association that pursues, and achieves, excellence in all their activities whether that be sector representation, communicating with members or undertaking commercial activity. That the association has come back with even stronger entries than last year show that they do not settle for second place and their commitment to being the best is unrelenting.
This commitment, along with their ability to innovate and “think outside the box”, was clearly evident in their entry in the Commercial Initiative category where that took what was a problem for their members and turned it into a commercial opportunity which is reaping a considerable financial return for the organisation and providing benefits their members.
The judges were also particularly impressed that this commercial acumen had been accompanied by a strong social and environmental performance. The awarding of the trophy for in the Exhibition of the Year category was not just for the commercial success of the venture but because of the environmentally responsible way in which the exhibition was organised and run. This high degree of CSR was also evidence in the association being a finalist in the Social Initiative of the Year category and sets a benchmark for how Trade Associations must think and perform in future.
Finally, the judges were keen to acknowledge that the British Insurance Brokers’ Association had achieved all this with only 16 staff. A truly remarkable performance.
