Page 159 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 15 – CONCORD INSURANCE GROUP (CONCORD)
Chapter 15 - Concord Insurance Group (Concord)
Shortly after my arrival in Australia I was approached by Ian Gamble, a fellow who promoted acquisitions and takeovers. He proposed that NW should buy an underwriting agency which later on transpired to be Concord. The principals of Concord were Ron Smith and Ian Parsons. I met them on Christmas Eve in 1983 in their offices next to Melbourne’s Victoria Market.
I found them great guys to get on with until I made an offer. Ron’s response to my offer was “we are not looking for someone to take over the petty cash, what about the value for the rest of the business”. This was the start of a wonderful relationship even though we never purchased the business.
As it happened, about a year later Concord transferred the agency business to NWIA. It wasn’t all wine and roses to begin with, but I did come to admire how Ron and Ian went about making sure their portfolio was profitable. By this I mean they were committed to making underwriting profits and it proved to me that if you give people appropriate incentives in underwriting, anything can be achieved.
As part of the relationship we had weekly tennis encounters, both indoors and outdoors, which were always followed by a dinner where the game was analysed and the accusations about line calls were adjudicated. We also analysed the insurance industry over a glass of wine and learnt much. Daphne and I would also dine with Ron and Coralie regularly on Saturday nights at Tamara’s restaurant where we always finished with a half barrel of Stilton filled with port!
The good days there ended on the eventual transfer of the NW business to CIC, where the relationship with the CIC Chief Executive did not work. Concord set about trying to find another underwriter and I helped Ron in this using my industry contacts. Eventually we chose Mercantile Mutual which was managed at the time by Phil Shirriff. Phil’s integrity was beyond question, except on the tennis court where he couldn’t see the lines at all. During
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