MDRT pays tribute to Fidelity's Watson

Tuesday, April 20th 2004, 6:10AM
Five Top of the Table Advisory Board members of the insurance industry’s world-wide Million Dollar Round Table (MDRT) shared their knowledge and experiences with around 200 New Zealand insurance brokers in Auckland on Friday.

New brokers rubbed shoulders alongside doyens of the industry like Gordon Watson, who founded Fidelity Life in New Zealand with his wife Shirley 31 years ago, and NZ’s own Top of the Table (TOT) members like Chris MacKay from Lower Hutt. Brian Klee, IMCC divisional vice-president, says with the 2004 members yet to be confirmed, last year there were 101 MDRT members, 13 Court of the Table (COT) and five TOT members in New Zealand.

For a New Zealand to qualify for MDRT status last year, he or she had to earn $154,600 in MDRT Premium, three times that for COT and six times that amount ($927,600) for TOT.

For those applying for membership to MDRT using MDRT commission, the amount was $77,300.

Klee says the expressions MDRT Premium and MDRT Commission are complex, but simplistically mean new annual premium income and new basic initial commissions.

“For 2005 membership the figures are $157,200 MDRT Premium and $78,600 for MDRT Commission,” he says.

Gordon Watson, who founded Fidelity in the same year that he qualified for MDRT, was honoured by his MDRT peers to mark his contribution to the industry and his retirement.

Watson said a visit to the United States to the MDRT annual meeting just after he started Fidelity convinced him he was on the right track. Full of fresh ideas he returned to New Zealand and eventually saw the company spread throughout the country.

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