With the collapse of Court Line filling the headlines, few people have noticed that a life assurance company has also gone down -the first in 100 years. Nation Life was just one of the companies run by WILLIAM STERN , now in trouble; part of a £200-million empire which stretched from banking to property, built up with borrowed money-perhaps from your bank, life assurance company, or pension fund. Paul Griffiths , for Man Alive, looks at what happened and asks William Stern what went wrong?