M O N E Y, M O N E Y
Does money make you happy?
I did well and then the Hungarians came and the Poles, so I did very well.
No, but there is a balance in that having less than what you need makes you unhappy. You need a certain level for happiness But once you have reached that level, more money doesn’t make you happier. All the work I do is totally voluntary.... You can only do so many trips, and eat and drink so much. But I still claim all my expenses and I like to stay at the Hilton.
So your business worked on the strength of your selling. You didn’t borrow money from anyone? I bought my first house in Alicetown in Lower Hutt, it was £310, I got a first and second mortgage and then I had to sell enough insurance to raise the deposit. That was my first big investment, my first home. We did it up, sold it, and bought another to do up. I hadn’t planned to be a finance and insurance man. Boyd Klap stayed with the T&G (Temperance and General) Life Insurance Company in the South Island, Australia, and eventually became the New Zealand manager, and for five more years until 1988 after the company merged with Prudential Life Insurance. He’s been CEO of the Life Officers’ Association, a consultant to accountants Pricewaterhouse, advisor to the Government on superannuation policy and a representative at related OECD conferences, and chairman of Sentinel and Partners Life.
You’ve been involved with voluntary projects for a long time? Twenty five years, but only with those that interest me. The Anne Frank exhibition was in 17 museums in NZ. It ran for three years here, and was hugely successful in the War Memorial Museum in Auckland. The World Press Photo Exhibition was the first one I did 12 years ago. I have handed it over now, it’s still continuing. Before that I brought out jazz bands like the Dutch Swing College band. The 350th anniversary of the discovery of New Zealand by Abel Tasman was in 1992. Bill Rowling, the former Prime Minister, who was from Nelson, wanted to have the Dutch Queen in Tasman Bay. So I worked with Bill on that for a couple of years and was involved in raising money for it, and for getting Queen Beatrice out here for the celebrations in Golden Bay.
Did you ever think of returning to Holland? We took our three young children back to Holland. I had offers from Shell, from KLM to stay in Holland. Ria and I looked at the idea. However we preferred to bring our children up here. In Holland there was the threat of Russia, and the possibility of a third world war was very relevant.
And now the Rembrandt exhibition has come from Amsterdam? Rembrandt’s The Night Watch from the Rijksmuseum is one of the most significant paintings in the world and the exhibition is fantastic. It is 4 x 5 metres. They managed to get all the paintings from private collections and digitally re master them. I saw that exhibition in Amsterdam and I said you need to come to New Zealand first. It's on in Wellington for a month before it goes to Auckland.
You were quite early onto reverse mortgages? A small business called Invincible was the first to do it. I was on the board of the Victoria University research unit into ageing. There was a national conference around ageing. Chris Coon, a brilliant guy, the managing director of Sovereign Insurance, was there. He was my competitor but we were good friends. He asked “what do I think about reverse mortgages? I was in my 70s then and he told me “We are going to start a company and I want you to be on the board,” I said, Chris...you know how old I am, and he said what’s wrong with you? You need your ears cleaning! So I became a board member and within two months they asked if I would mind chairing it. It was a huge success, with a very sellable product and a big market share. That was Sentinel. We were working in Australia, and dealing with a reverse mortgage company in Scandinavia. We started in Ireland, we were talking about India … and then the global financial crisis hit. We didn’t go down but had little future. I lost interest and Jenny Shipley came in and took over from me. After that Chris and his brother Richard suggested we start another life insurance company. I became the chairman of Partners Life. In 2009 there were four of us, and when I left two years later we had a staff of 120 and were the second biggest life insurance company for new business in the country.
What are you going to do when your body gives out or...or when you retire? I’ve tried to get New Zealand to realise that we need longer term savings to provide more security and it will create capital within the country so we don’t need to go to China all the time. I will just continue with that I think. It was the German Chancellor Bismark – about 1880 – who started this business of retiring at 65. He put in a pension scheme – hardly anyone ever got there in those days. But it helped to stop low-paid Germans emigrating to the United States. Years ago I said that the Government can’t afford to pay this pension at age 65 when the baby boomers retire. People were shocked. One thing I note though is that people in their 50s and 60s who’ve had responsible jobs are finding it practically impossible to get back into the workforce and that is because we have that funny thing that youth is important rather than looking at the competence of people. A competent older person is better than a competent younger person because he/she has experience.
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