This year, we are showcasing each winner of the National Boating Industry Safety Awards via an individualized blog that answers questions posed to each winner. This will allow our readers to get to know each of the winners and see some of their winning materials, too.

The next Q&A blog in our winner series comes to us from Chubb Personal Risk Services and we talked with James Berthelon who is the Assistant Vice President and National Catastrophic Communications Manager. Our conversation is covered below.

1. Congratulations on winning the National Boating Industry Safety Award! Can you please describe your winning entry for our audience?

Thank you for the opportunity to share our story! We are proud to have received this award, showcasing our marine marketing, PR, and advertising efforts. Each spring, I work with our team of watercraft specialists to develop new content such as articles, blog posts, and videos that we share with our clients, agents, and boaters in general through a variety of marketing channels like email, social media, and web. We always cover a variety of topics and safe boating recommendations, and in 2022, our core emphasis was on marina fires, safe docking tips, and case studies involving major boating accidents.

2. How does winning this award help your company? What partnerships, media coverage or opportunities have you gotten because of it?

Receiving this award is one of those rare win-wins, where what we create helps protect individuals and their families while doing the thing many of us enjoy the most —spending time on the water with friends and family. Practicing proper boating safety obviously reduces the chance of an accident which also helps us as an insurance company. Our communications are designed to be purely educational for our clients, and when they’re done genuinely and with sophistication, they also help us build engagement, brand awareness, and loyalty. The feedback from winning this award has been nothing short of awesome. It has created an exciting buzz within our company and among our agents! Chubb championed this award not only across our personal lines division, but across all of our businesses. We are also proudly displaying this award in our upcoming spring mini-campaign for 2023!

3. What inspired you to promote boating safety?

While I am an inner-city kid from Brooklyn, NY, I’ve been around water my entire life as I grew up in a commercial fishing family out of Sheepshead Bay, NY. To this day, I spend many days on the water as an avid fisherman. I attribute much of my happiness in life to time spent on the water, but I am also keenly aware of just how powerful and unforgiving that same water can be, and how quickly accidents can happen, regardless of experience. Therefore, it’s crucial for me to promote boating safety, so others can enjoy being on the water as much as I do.

4. What it was like creating your award-winning project or campaign? How much time did it take? How many people were involved?

I love working with the recreational marine team here at Chubb — it’s always an exciting time, and they’re boating enthusiasts as well! Our campaign takes weeks to cultivate, from storyboarding concepts to developing assets. Then, we use omni-channel marketing tactics to promote those assets over a period of weeks and months. There are between three and five Chubb team members, including myself, who have a role in these campaigns in various capacities. We are all boating enthusiasts with a trove of knowledge who come from all across the country, each bringing a different perspective on boating on different bodies of water.

1. What did you learn from working on this project or campaign?

    

   I’ve learned that boating accidents can happen at any time, under any conditions. For example, over 70% of boating accidents happen on clear, sunny days, and that over half of boating accidents happen on calm days when waves are less than 6”.

    

2. Are you working on any future boating safety projects or campaigns? If so, is there anything you can share about what you’re planning to do?

Yes! In 2023, we’ll likely focus on pre-storm preparedness through a variety of mediums and channels. If you’re not a Chubb client and want to keep up with our spring campaign, visit www.chubb.com/watercraft.

Congratulations again to Chubb on winning the 2022 National Boating Industry Safety Award as the 1^st place Marine Public Relations, Advertising or Marketing Effort! You can watch Chubb accepting their award from October 2022 in the video linked below.