Awards season continued apace last week, with the Charlton publishing group dishing up a decent helping on behalf of its Australian Banking and Finance publication. QBE was named Best General Insurance Company and Best Risk Manager, while CEO Frank O’Halloran was named “Best Australian Insurance Executive Of The Year”.

Aon was named “Broker of the Year” and AAMI won the awards for best promotion and best website.

Other winners: CUNA Mutual Group for best technology innovation and best niche insurer; CommInsure for best life insurance product, best general insurance product and best call centre; Wesfarmers for best regional insurer and Munich Re for best reinsurance company.

The awards frenzy for the risk insurance industry is mainly being driven by trade publishers for their own purely commercial purposes, but sometimes you have to wonder…

Personal Investor magazine wants to keep its award secret for the next three weeks. Its awards night was held in Sydney last Wednesday, but the magazine wants to announce them in its next issue, so it isn’t going to tell anyone anything.

Personal Investor magazine is about to be folded into the Australian Financial Review. Whether it will continue with awards next year remains to be seen.