The End of an Era

After almost thirty years in the business, ITIC’s Claims Director, Julia Mavropoulos, has retired.

On the last day of 2004, Julia Mavropoulos, Claims Director of ITIC for the past eleven years, retired.

Julia has been involved in the shipping industry since the early 1970s, has been an underwriter and claims handler for ITIC since the mid 1980s, and has been in charge of ITIC’s claims since 1993.

If you ask Julia how she became involved in the shipping industry she will tell you that she ‘fell’ into it by mistake. Julia was married to a port captain for a Greek shipowner, based in India and Bangladesh, and found herself spending time on and off ships, coming into contact with local ship agents and generally became immersed in, and fascinated by, shipping life.

Julia then moved to Piraeus in the 1970s, where she worked for a company who were both the General Correspondents for the UK P&I Club and Lloyd’s Agent for Greece. The fascination with shipping and shipping claims continued and when Julia returned to London she was offered a position with the management company of TIM, one of the predecessors of ITIC, and the rest, as they say, is history.

According to Julia, the good thing about a job with ITIC is the opportunity to meet people from all over the world, and the sheer variety of the work. In addition to her Claims Director function, Julia has also had the opportunity to act as an account executive, which means marketing and underwriting as well as handling claims for a particular part of the world. In the past Julia has had the opportunity to visit many countries in her account executive role, and will always have fond memories of the generous hospitality afforded to her by Members throughout the world.

Julia became the ITIC expert on ship agency matters, and regularly spoke at conferences around the world. She has been a regular contributor to ITIC’s publications, the Intermediary and The Claims Review, and is also responsible for most of ITIC’s circulars on ship agency. One of the most important parts of her job was to keep abreast of developments worldwide that may have an impact on agents and to advise Members. The most recent development is the ISPS Code. Athough the role of the agent is not mentioned, the ISPS Code places an extra burden on them for no additional financial reward. However, if the agents get it wrong there will be blame and claims.

Although the demanding Claims Director role meant that Julia had to restrict her account executive activities, until she retired she maintained her connection to the North West of England (she is a native of Lancashire) and India, a country she first visited in 1973 and intends to continue to visit after her retirement.

“Working for ITIC has been a great experience for me” Julia says. “It has given me an opportunity to make friends around the world, and to assist Members with their problems. It is wonderful to be part of ITIC’s dedicated team, and I am happy that “my” Members are in good hands now that I have retired”.

With clients around the world, travelling became an integral part of the job for Julia, and she intends to do far more travelling now that she has retired. Although her main aim is to have a long and happy retirement, she has plenty of interests to keep her busy.

That’s not to say she will be leaving shipping circles completely as Julia has maintained her links with ITIC. “I have been with ITIC since the beginning, as have several of my colleagues. I am very proud of what we have achieved in making ITIC the world leader it is.” Julia now acts as as a part time consultant to ITIC and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future.