Page 163 - Be Reasonable – Do It My Way , Peter E. Daly AM, My Story

CHAPTER 16 - GET THE LION ON THE LINE AND LET US TRACK YOU DOWN A BETTER DEAL
Chapter 16 - Get The Lion On The Line and let us track you down a better deal
By the time I arrived in Australia, Norwich (UK) had already purchased Walton’s Insurance Company. Walton’s, which NW had purchased in August 1980 and was renamed Stronghold Insurance Aust. Ltd., sold personal lines insurance through booths set up in the Walton’s Bond fifty department stores in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane.
The premiums were funded by Walton’s Credit Ltd., so that policyholders paid on the never-never in what was known as the Walton’s bluebook. From a consumer point of view this was dreadful as the repayments could carry on for three or more years for a one-year policy and the interest rates were ferocious (up to 40%). If the policyholders didn’t renew their policies they often thought they were still insured as the payments on the first year original policy kept going. This caused endless claims disputes.
To add to our problems, Waltons Stores Ltd. was purchased by Alan Bond, the entrepreneur of America’s Cup fame. Norwich continued to distribute insurance through the stores and also insured Alan Bond’s businesses. We not only insured the buildings but we also held the mortgages. He was quite a clever fellow, in that when taking over companies such as Walton Stores, he would seek to increase the mortgage thereby raising additional capital. Anyway, he flew to Norwich in the UK and met with the Senior Executives, who found him just unbelievable because he came out fighting, demanding more commission and increased mortgages.
Apparently, he told them that he had a Broker who said he should be receiving something like 20% commission, whereas he was
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