Colin Dallas
For Colin Dallas, Chairman of TL Dallas, fireworks have been a lifelong passion – but they have to be big and they have to be good. “The most impressive fireworks for a crowd are aerial mortar shells,” he says. “They come in calibres 2-inch up to 6, 8, 12-inch or bigger and travel up to 1,000 feet in the sky before bursting to cover an acre of sky with thrilling, coloured stars and effects.”Is insurance in your family?
My grandfather, Thomas Lessels Dallas, set up the business in 1919 but it’s not really a family business today. It’s a professional partnership run by working directors – although my daughter does work for the business. After my grandfather died, the business
was sold and became part of Marsh Group for about 15 years.
We bought the business from Marsh to become independent again and this has allowed us to concentrate on certain niche areas,
one of which is providing insurance against hurricanes for yachts. Being independent is very important to us. I think clients benefit from better service from independent brokers.
What gets you fired up?
Fireworks have interested me since I was about five. This interest got me into quite a bit of trouble at school for blowing up things in the school grounds with my homemade fireworks. In more than 50 years of using fireworks and putting on public displays,
I’ve learnt a great deal of respect for this explosive art form.
Do you have a licence to thrill?
We have a Category Four Firework Licence, which means we can buy large fireworks that are not on sale to the public for big displays. There’s quite a lot of labour involved in setting up a display to ensure that all the fireworks are synchronised and in time with the music. I am sometimes asked by corporate clients to put on displays for them, so it’s a good opportunity to get them to make sure their insurance policies are up to date.
Can you turn the noise down?
I’m sometimes asked to do quiet fireworks shows. You can do them quietly with fountains and waterfalls but these types of shows tend not to be as appreciated as much as those involving big aerial shellbursts – except by people trying to watch television.
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The CV
| 1967-1971 | MA Hons in Economics and Philosophy at St Andrews |
| 1971-1972 | TL Dallas Group, Broker |
| 1972 | Broker with Harris & Dixon, our London Brokers |
| 1973–present: | TL Dallas Group, Director since 1973, Chairman since 2005 |