Ottawa’s Kim Hunton wins risk management award

Kim Hunton of Ottawa is the 2006 recipient of RIMS Canada’s Donald M. Stuart Award, established in 1979 to recognize outstanding contributions to the field of risk and insurance management in Canada.
Hunton received the award at a special awards presentation at the 2006 RIMS Canada Conference in Calgary.
In a speech, Hunton said she was “delighted” to receive the Donald Stuart award. She accepted the award in a presentation that departed somewhat from tradition: her presenters included the six previous recipients of the award Susan Meltzer, Joe Restoule, Nancy Chambers, Wayne Hickey, Bill McGannon and Keith Gibson.
“I am thrilled to win the award, the reason being that the award is given annually and the list of previous recipients is pretty prestigious,” Hunton said afterwards in an interview. “I’m really, really honored to join that list of people and be in that kind of company. It means that someone thinks well of me, and that what I’ve done is on the same scale as that of people who I really think are very, very good risk managers and who are worthy of the award historically.”
In 2001, Hunton was the first risk manager for the amalgamated City of Ottawa. She has worked for her local RIMS chapter in Ottawa since 1985. She has served as a member of the RIMS board since 1987, and is currently the vice chair of the RIMS Canada Council.
Hunton started risk management by way of claims. “I took a job at Royal Insurance right out of high school through a headhunter,” she says. “It was in a claims office of Royal Insurance. It grew from there.” She eventually started work in the field of claims adjustment. She then became the director of claims at OC Transpo and leveraged her insurance knowledge to set up a risk management area for OC Transpo.