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Friends United Meeting |
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March 1998
Trust but Verify
By Johan Maurer
Ronald Reagan loved to quote the old Russian proverb "trust but verify" when discussing Soviet-American arms reduction efforts. The proverb came to mind as I considered lessons we have learned from our experiences with Phil Harmon and National Friends Insurance Trust-experiences we cover at some length in this issue of Quaker Life.
We feel we were seriously misinformed and misled by Phil Harmon and his associates. However, we will learn very little from these experiences if we portray ourselves as innocent victims of evil con artists. It would be more honest and useful to consider the questions we might have asked during the course of this sad story. Some of these questions might have headed off temptations which may have derailed these men off their ethical tracks.
Question: Why was the original trust document not widely distributed? (We at Friends United Meeting were never able to locate a single copy.) If copies had been provided-or demanded-we might have paid more attention to appointing and replacing trustees. The insurance committee which was provided for might have been activated. We would have known to expect an annual audit.
Question: Why were we not curious about where our premium dollars went? If we were buying pooled insurance, we should have at least wondered about the companies providing this important service. If we were self-insured (as it seems we were from 1989 on), why did we not ask how our insurance reserves were invested? After all, we have been concerned about the ethical investment of many other Quaker funds, avoiding gambling, pornography, the arms industry, and so on. If we had asked these questions about National Friends Trust in recent years, we might have learned the alarming fact that there were fewer and fewer investments and reserves.
Question: When we noticed the "squeaky wheel syndrome," why didn't we get alarmed? We observed in the last couple of years that claims were being paid more slowly, but that complaints would bring faster service. Why did we not insist that our meeker employees get the same service as our assertive ones? The final alarm should have been the difference between the date on NFT's check and the date it was received by our employee.
I get personally embarrassed when I think about how polite and patient I was with the charming excuses we received from Phil Harmon and his son-in-law, Terry Beebe. This charm was one of the key factors in the whole story, along with the undeniable fact that for nearly 25 years, the mechanism seemed to run well. The man who hosted the Friends Superintendents and Secretaries on his yacht on a lovely fall day in 1996, letting me have the helm for a few thrilling minutes, and assuring me of his concern for our employee suffering from cancer, probably knew at that moment that NFT's days were numbered, but we coasted along for two more months, lulled by a long history of cozy relations.
When I arrived at FUM five years ago, we were ourselves not regularly audited. That changed in my first year; our annual audits since then have documented our return to financial health. We have instituted ethical guidelines for promotion and fundraising (copies available on request) and are considering membership in the Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability.
These safeguards are great, in theory. In real life, under pressures of time and money, we often make judgments about when we can rely on past experience and when we must demand full data. What I have learned from Phil Harmon is this: Those I can really trust will not make it hard for me to verify. They will make it easy, even routine, to get the information I need to make good decisions. When you expect me to trust without up-front information, no matter how wonderful you are, it is time for me to ask hard questions.
Johan Maurer is editor of Quaker Life and general secretary of Friends United Meeting.
Copyright (c) 1998 Friends United Meeting
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