March 2013
Bill Turner found it hard to believe. He could only assume that someone up there must have it in for him. His employers, The Ajax Insurance Co. had only gone and taken on, for the fourth time one Frank Sanders, a man with whom Bill had never really hit it off. They must be crazy; how long did they think he was going to stay this time? Only until he found another better opportunity elsewhere, but if these opportunities were so much better, why did he always end up coming back to Ajax? Perhaps it was just to plague him, thought Bill, disconsolately.
Anyway, I'll have to make the best of it, reasoned Bill as he found himself being introduced, yet again, to Frank Sanders.
'I think you two know each other.' Said the office manager.
We certainly do, mused Bill, surmising that the vacancy for a Section Head in the Ajax Policies Department wouldn't be open for very long. No doubt Sanders would talk himself into that very shortly. Give him that, he certainly had the gift of the gab.
It seemed that for the present Sanders would be working with Bill (just his luck) and a couple of juniors producing UK liability policies. Already he was trying to impress them with his superiority.
'Yes, Debbie,' he was saying to a young girl who had just started drafting policies a few weeks earlier. 'You really ought to study for the Associateship exams in order to get on in insurance. Should take you about two years to pass the exams. Isn't that about the right amount of time, Bill?'
'Well, actually, it took me eighteen months,' Bill replied, trying not to sound too smug.
Shortly after this, Frank was given the task of preparing a policy for a very valued client. It had to be word perfect so that it would be agreed by underwriters then signed up at Lloyds on first submission with hopefully no queries out between brokers and underwriters.
Frank Sanders duly completed the policy wording, some fifty pages, and passed it over to his colleague, Bill, to double-check it before sending it in to Lloyds.
Bill went through it and, apart from some relatively minor errors, to his astonishment found that his old adversary had included two different employer's liability wordings in the same policy. He could see what Sanders had done; he'd added the employer's wording from somewhere on the wordings database, not realising the main wording already had one!
Needless to say, after Bill had re-vamped the whole policy and by some miracle it had been signed by Lloyds and sent to the client within a week, a miracle within the London insurance market, it was Sanders who got the credit.
Bill felt he needed a break after this, so he took himself off on a walking tour of the Lake District, where he could forget about Frank Sanders and policies that were required the next day, if not sooner.
When he returned to the office, his manager summoned him to the office to give him some unexpected news. 'We've decided to make you manager of the Policy Department,' he said.
'But I assumed the position was Frank Sanders',' said Bill, bluntly.
'No,' replied his manager. 'I think I know who knocked Amalgamated Steel's policy into shape so it could be agreed and signed. In any case, didn't you know? Frank's leaving us at the end of the month. Apparently he's had a better offer.'