Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation Plans to Expand Its Charitable Services to Boston

The Insurance Industry Charitable Foundation (IICF) is planning to expand its volunteer and charitable services to the Boston and New England region.

The foundation is holding an informational meeting in Boston on June 20 to introduce IICF to the local insurance community and discuss charitable opportunities.

The IICF’s Northeast Division is now in its fifth year of service, said Elizabeth Myatt, the IICF’s executive director. “For the first five years, we’ve been working to get established, starting in New York City and the New York tri-state area.”

“But when the division was created, we always had plans to expand across the Northeast once we had things underway in the New York tri-state area,” she said. “We had particular interest in the Boston area since it is such an important business and insurance hub. In 2012, we plan to make the expansion a reality if at all possible.”

Two Boston-based insurance leaders will spearhead the IICF’s expansion effort: Patrick Rastiello, senior managing director at Aon Benfield, and Jim Wallace, vice president at Aspen Specialty Insurance. The two executives will host this month’s IICF informational meeting.

The goal for this meeting, Myatt explained, is to assess interest — with the hopes of forming a Boston/New England chapter and serve that community, in the same way that New York and the tri-state area has been giving back to communities through grants, volunteer services and leadership. “We would work with the Boston insurance community to give back to the local area there. So that would be the goal if we were to establish a chapter in Boston.”

In addition to the information session, the foundation plans to launch in Boston the IICF Week of Giving, from Oct. 13 to 20.

“We definitely want to line up projects where people in the Boston area can come out and join the week of Oct. 13 through 20 to provide volunteer services,” Myatt said. For more information, visit www.iicf.org or contact Elizabeth Myatt at emyatt@iicf.com.