Bill Earle, Insurance People Media

Award presented by Chuck Byrne, Executive Director, IBABC.

In the early ’60s while Bill Earle was at UBC he worked at his dad’s adjusting firm. His father had frequently expressed that he wished there was a directory for the industry. They developed a business plan and Bill published the first BC Insurance Directory in 1964 before he graduated. He continued to publish the directory as a home-based business while he worked at a Vancouver advertising agency.

In 1978 Bill pitched IBABC on a proposal to make its newsletter into a self-sustaining magazine. The IBABC leadership approved the deal. Now with a directory and a magazine to publish, Bill quit his day job. 

BC Broker Magazine became an important benefit of membership in IBABC, and through it, Bill served as IBABC’s de facto communications department for many years. The magazine also became a template that has been used successfully across Canada – Alberta Broker, Saskatchewan Broker, and so on, all the way to the Atlantic Broker. Along the way he launched today’s Insurance People Magazine, which brings the P&C insurance industry in Canada together. And his directories now cover the four western provinces.

Bill’s staff are all consummate pros, and incredibly loyal and dedicated. They are a family.

In 1992 Bill and a few colleagues launched the Insurance Person of the Year award and Salute banquet – again, to showcase the excellence within the industry and with a few more of us launched the RP Vickerstaff dinner as well now in its 16th year.

Bill has always ensured his publications meet the needs of the insurance industry, and truly reflect what’s best about it – its people, and its professionalism. The magazines have become our collective institutional memory. And his business has become indispensable to B.C.’s insurance industry. Today vertical publications are everywhere, but 40+ years ago, it was a new concept, and it took a visionary to see the opportunities in our industry, and make it happen.