Financial Times

Insurance wars - Confusion worst confounded
The barn loft was unusually crowded, with many in the family gathered for the Protective Owls Rotary Club meeting. Even a set of migrating owls from far corners of the world had flown in that evening. The Wise Old Owl presiding over the meeting commenced proceedings welcoming the visiting owls and then all present joined in to recite the protective owl commitments to stakeholders in true Rotarian tradition, with the right hand across the heart.

The club news, events, birthdays and anniversaries all announced and out of the way, the presiding owl introduced the topic for debate that evening - " who is the winner of the insurance wars in ole Lanka?"

The ASEAN owl seconded an objection raised by the Coop owl that this war must cease immediately and the topic of debate taken off the agenda or else the meeting costs that evening must be shared by the warring owls. The objections quickly overruled, the debate began with the Sea owl referring to its pedigree, the asset value of its kitty, its double AA ranking in flying the league tables and of course the compensation paid to the flying monaras and the human kind when downed many years ago by the bite of the Tigers and the southern bird riots.

Matching the pedigree and lineage with a multi generation chart, the Ceylon Owl claimed undisputed new leadership in terms of miles flown last year for which revenue miles credited exceeded the displaced leader. Ceylon owl claimed the Protective Rotarian of the year award supporting the claim not only on revenue miles but on very important person- related innovation that brought a string of recognitions across Asia. The only criteria for leadership is revenue miles and the digesting Lankan monthly had already given that award. The victory had already been celebrated with a picture of the owl family in front of the nest, all delivered to homes last weekend wrapped around the leading types rag sheets.

The United owl gave an explanation of leadership criteria that was here nor there. The Eager Owl thought leadership was about best practices, transparency, accountability, governance with highest shareholder returns being the deciding factor. People power owl refrained from entering the debate whilst others kept watching intensely where this war of words was headed.

The presiding owl asked the visiting Rotarians to shed light from their respective lands. The first to speak was the Continental owl who talked of the great heights of expansion once a famous Radio entity went to and ended with a belly landing with a severe shortage of working capital.

The Australian owl talked of an owl that went down without adequate reserve fuel to complete the journey already begun. Another talked of how the window dressing owl had a crash landing in its land. The American owl talked of the target shooting round the clock that the New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer was yet engaged in, having scored a bulls eye bringing the Marsh Owl down and asked the local owls to beware of unauthorized payments, unethical conduct and related party transactions in the event the Regulator owl gets in to action.

Media owls and ad agency owls in unison hailed the need to keep the debate going and clapped the leading contenders on, knowing that taxi meters run fast as the taxis race to beat the stationery industry traffic light. Broker owl spoke profound words of wisdom that failed to tilt the balance in the debate. Why worry said the sleeping insects and worms in the hay below, the Government owl will bail us any time and lets make hay whilst the sun shines outside our blinkered eyes.

Before the Sea owl could reply with the closing address, the Ceylon owl declared that all was fair in love and war and it was time to express love for the displaced owl and it was time to forget the war as the beneficiaries were the mice, frogs and reptiles spared of a targeted attack whilst the big birds were fighting on. Ceylon owl then let loose the upper cut stating with sarcasm, "leadership like beauty is in the eye of the beholder".

Wise old owl looked at the watch and declared a dead heat and the debate at a close, remarking looking beyond the horizon at the Regulator owl awakening from a cat nap "let the Regulator be the eye of the beholder and may it focus on security and solvency in a fair fight for leadership". All owls stood for the national anthem as the meeting came to a close.

(The writer could be reached at - wo_owl@yahoo.co.uk)

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