CLICO International Life policyholders want answers.
They want to know if the money they invested in that company, more specifically the Executive Flexible Annuities – many of which mature in 2012 – will be recovered or if their investment is lost.
As several of these individuals are nearing retirement, or are retired and saw this investment as their retirement nest egg, not knowing what is going to happen to their money is causing much anxiety.
June Fowler is one of those investors. In this paper two weeks ago she asked what was happening with the company? She complained that no one from the company or the Government was saying anything. And she called for her money back.
Her strident calls struck a nerve with some other policyholders and they have contacted her.
Today June Fowler talks to Yvette Best about her fears and hopes, and those of the investors she has spoken with, concerning the future of their investment.
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What brought you to this stage?
It was strange because I had resolved, like everybody else, that I ain’t going to get my money back. That it was going to be another long inquiry, nothing would happen so I had given up.
For some strange reason, about three weeks ago – I think it was the same day I sent the letter to THE NATION – I was at my desk and I just felt this thing in me to . . . . [I said to myself] This thing is nonsense, nobody is saying anything, nobody is talking to you. I need to find out what is happening. The only way to find out is through the Press.
And I did the letter up and sent it to THE NATION, Advocate, Barbados Today. I didn’t see anything happen; so I figured, ‘Well, maybe they didn’t think it was an important letter’.
I just forgot about it, and then I came home from church the Sunday and Robert [her husband] said, ‘You got people calling here all the time, saying this letter in THE NATION’, and then it created some sort of feedback.
But really it is the audacity of Clico’s executive to not communicate with their clients, and that is my main thing – that there is no communication.
For them not to call, not to say anything, [not] to communicate; to me it’s almost like a slap in the face.
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 When did you sign on to your pension plan?
It was 2008, I actually signed off on December 2008. I think the story had just broken like October or something.
Even when he came here – because he doesn’t usually come to my house but he came here the night – to sign, I said, ‘Should I sign this or should I not sign this?’
Then he said, ‘What you’re hearing in the news is just Trinidad, it has nothing to do with Barbados. It does not affect Barbados’.
I said, ‘Okay, no problem’, so I signed. Of course, we heard later in 2009, when everything broke loose, that Barbados was also affected as well.
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 What are you hoping will come out of this?
Now, I ain’t a fool. I know that you’re not going to see your money for maybe the next five years, maybe even ten years. What I’m hoping to achieve is a dialogue with the policyholders.
I’m hoping that CLICO will hold townhall meetings. My suggestion would be the agencies [hold them] because each agency has its clients. My agent said to me, ‘Well, to try to communicate with 2 500 people is going to be a lot of work’.
But you communicated with them individually before you got their money. So why not come together, call all your clients, get a meeting with them even if it is to share one sentence: ‘We don’t have any information yet, this is what we have. This is who the judicial manager is. This is where things are going’. But you’re not hearing anything.
My amount is only what, $8 000?
So it is the man who called that has $400 000, who now had to get a bank loan to put his daughter through university because the monies he had put aside to put his daughter through university, he cannot get to. He is 60 years old. He is the person I am concerned about.
Or the woman who is retired and put her money there to save because the agent said, ‘Put your money there for your pension’. Now she can’t get it. So she is sitting down crying when the night comes because she can’t get the money. So it is those things that got me upset.
 You found out about these people since you sent your letters to the NATION?
Yes. They’ve all called.
 How many people have contacted you?
Well, I’ve been keeping a list because we want to have a meeting in early February. There are about ten – some through email, some through Facebook, some through telephone calls.
The 60-year-old guy called, then there were two Facebook messages.
When the vice-president spoke to me, he said, ‘Government has secured your money’. Secured what money? Government can’t pay [Al] Barrack, how is Government going to pay us? Where is the money going to come from?
I believe that a frank dialogue has to take place. I believe people need to hear, ‘You’re going to get your money, but you’re going to get it in tranches; you’re going to get your money, but not before the next five, ten years’.
There is the possibility you will get only 50 cents to the dollar or whatever they say, but they need to talk to us.
 Would you accept it if they said you could not get back that $8 000 invested?
I ain’t got no choice. Even though Government would say, ‘Clico has the assets’ and the Registrar says, ‘We have the assets’, they cannot be easily liquidated.
You’ve got hard land and buildings that you can’t liquidate into cash. If you sell them you’re going to lose anyhow; so they have to hold those until the markets turn around – which may not happen for the next five years.
And what happens to our money then? What happens to that person who is 65, 70 and perhaps may have five more years to live? What happens to their money? Are there any guarantees that the money will go to their estate?
We need dialogue. They should come and speak and I’m not doing the PR for them, but they need to communicate through the Press, through emails.
 Who is June Fowler that she is asking for all this? I am no activist. I am no avenger. I’m not out to get Clico, neither am I an advocate. I am someone who has experienced great financial loss through the loss of a business that I had with others. So I know what it is to lose everything financially.
I know what it is to get to the bottom and start again. Fortunately, and hopefully, God willing, I still maybe have another 20, 25 years on this planet. But I believe there are some basic things that a business should do in terms of its customers and we’re pushing this whole NISE concept, the customer is king and the customer needs taking care of.
These guys [insurance agents] have gone through training. These guys know what it is to cold-call because before they can get your business they have to cold-call and they call sometimes three, four, five times in a year, coming at you all the time to get your business. Where is the cold-calling now?
Actually, some of them are working in other insurance companies. One of the ladies who called me said her former agent called her to sign new business with him at [his new place]. She said, ‘No way! I don’t trust you. I don’t even trust any insurance company’.
So people have lost confidence, people have lost trust in the industry.
 You said you suffered great financial loss in business. What business was it? How long ago? It closed in 2005 after 12 years. It was a training institution.
 How did you manage to pick up?
Strictly, the grace of God. I was out of the job market for a long time. Fortunately, I got a stint with British American for seven months.
And then a boss I had worked with before I went off on my own returned to Barbados to set up an offshore bank and contacted me to help him find staff and said, ‘Well, you know you can come back and work for me again’, and we met, talked, chatted and worked out a plan, and that’s where I am now.
April will be four years. So I know what it is to lose everything. I know what it is to invest everything that you have. If I have to lose $8 000 and I have to start building a pension back, [the loss] is not as impactful because I know what financial loss is.
But for the guy who is 60 years old who has never experienced financial loss, who has put everything into Clico hoping to send his daughter to university but now has to borrow – who perhaps was looking to retire – he now has to work for another ten or 15 years. So it’s people like that that concern me.
 Some people would say that $8 000 is not a lot of money and you work at an offshore bank. So why are you making so much noise?
This is so totally out of character because there is no way I would have written [the letters] because I [don’t want to] draw attention to myself. I don’t know what it was, but this thing just hit me at my desk and I just said, ‘You know, there is something wrong in this equation’.
We do not agitate for change; the few who do are ridiculed. It has to stop somewhere.
The other thing that bothers me is the regulation. Where I work, in the offshore bank, regulation is tight. If you mess up, the Central Bank will close you down. If you go outside of the guidelines or you in any way breach any of those rules, the Central Bank will close you down – no two ways about that.
Trinidad already has a plan in place; people are getting their monies back. I mean it is a ridiculous plan, especially for the elderly, but at least there is a plan and they’re hearing about it. What is Barbados doing?
 When do you come to the age of retirement?
It is the age of 70, I’m 53 now. William Layne came out to the Press saying [Leroy] Parris should give his money back; he should not have written policies during 2009.
So he has said that; but then Government doesn’t come out and say anything. What was the overall report? What were the findings? That’s what I don’t understand about Barbados.
I don’t know what I will say next week, but you know my refrain: I want my money back.
 This meeting next month is among yourselves? Have you invited people from Clico?
I’m going to look at February 11. I’m going to invite the same vice-president [David Clarke] who called me. Will he come? I don’t know. I will also extend an invitation to Mr William Layne of the Ministry of Finance. Will he come? I don’t know.
We’ll still meet and continue to agitate and keep in contact.
I don’t know where it’s going to take me next, I don’t know what’s going on with this. I just feel inside of me that something will happen.
Bajans are not foolish and after a while people will silently do what they have to do. Once all this is done Clico will go the way of the dinosaur. If it’s bought out, it will be off the landscape in the Caribbean, which is a sad thing because it was one of the major companies in the region.
When you research the assets it has tentacles all through the Middle East, all over Europe, the United States and the entire region.
How do you allow the empire to crumble? They were just cash rich. I think it’s $319 million [to be paid] next year in pensions and investments. Who is going to pay? Where is that money going to come from? Who pays those monies that mature next year in 2012? Government doesn’t have it. It’s sad.
So I’m not doing this for June. June’s investment is minor. It is for those people, pensioners, who may not live to see, to enjoy, to go on a cruise, to travel somewhere, because there is no guarantee that they will get their money back. That is what irks me.
