Page 141 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 13 - NORWICH WINTERTHUR INSURANCE AUSTRALIA LTD
40 years, having originally commenced as a Junior Clerk with the Norwich Union Fire Society. He had an excellent knowledge of the market, having served in many positions within the company and I relied heavily on his advice when it came to workers compensation.
There were also other changes and I was exceptionally pleased to be surrounded by people of the calibre of Tricia Kelly, Denis Trafford, Ron Moore and Don Wallace( who was the Chief Financial Officer), John Hayes Branch Manager in Sydney,
Jim Corsie and John Martin Branch Manager in Brisbane. Interestingly the first person I engaged in Australia was Gordon Siggins who was Head Office Project Manager responsible at the time for the development of the domestic portfolio. Incidentally, I was accused of favouritism because Gordon was an Essendon supporter.
I found some things in Melbourne had close resemblance to working for Aegis in South Africa. Not in any order, but one of our priorities was to entertain the visiting UK and also Swiss dignitaries and their wives. They loved coming to Australia, not least because we made some handsome profits for them but they also just liked us and the country.
Because of the relationship with Norwich Union Life the business was very heavily dependent on the production of life agents and local regional and rural agents. We basically had no Broker business at all. One of my main functions was to build the Company’s reputation in the Broker market. This also entailed building my own profile within the market and to achieve this aim, I spent a lot of time in meeting and dining Brokers as well as attending and participating in every conference available.
To raise my profile and establish myself in the Australian insurance market I engaged a firm of public relations consultants called Royce Consulting. Their task was to promote the profile of Norwich Winterthur including myself. I went through a number of training programs and I am sure Royce at times were ready to give up on me! They wanted me to attend every single function involving the
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