DEAR SIR: Matt Dempsey’s comments about FBD in your issue of 27 June brought me back to the origins of that company in the winter of 1968. It was formed to act as an agency to sell insurance against foot-and-mouth disease after the outbreak in the UK.
It was backed by underwriters at Lloyd’s of London. The going rates were 1/- for cattle, 6d for pigs and 3d for sheep. Together with other NFA staff, I was pressed into service to take orders for insurance over the phone and we did a brisk business. At the turn of the year, with no slackening of the outbreak in the UK, other agents selling policies in Ireland increased their rates.
FBD, under the guidance of the late great Paddy O’Keeffe, and in consultation with the underwriters, took the view that the controls in place were keeping the island of Ireland free from the disease and that the rates we were quoting would remain unchanged. This led to some fairly noxious briefing of the media by some competitors, but FBD stuck to its guns and continued to do brisk business.
Once the outbreak was declared to be over, my job changed. I then had to field calls from customers who wanted to know if they could get a refund of their premiums, since their stock had not been affected. That was when I really learned how to say “no” (more or less politely) – and I didn’t think that the customers who tried were really that innocent.