INDIVIDUAL POLICYHOLDERS IN CLICO International Life Insurance Ltd will be guaranteed the full value of their policies if the governments of Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean accept a recommendation to inject capital into the creation of a new company.
CLICO judicial manager Deloitte Consulting, which is represented by Oliver Jordan and Patrick Toppin, has recommended five options to regional governments in its July 28 final report and a subsequent addendum which was submitted to the Supreme Court last Tuesday.
During a press conference yesterday at Deloitte’s George Street, St Michael office, Jordan said the company initially presented a “base level restructuring option” which assumed no external funding.
Under this option, the best-case scenario was that policyholders would receive 60 cents in every dollar and the remaining 40 per cent in shares.
However, the addendum suggested four other options available to the region based on government injections of between $56 million and $152 million.
In all four options the full value of traditional policies, including life insurance, would be protected while corporate executive flexible premium annuities (EFPAs) would be converted into shares.
Consequently, Jordan said “a higher risk is borne by corporate policyholders”.
In the first option which would require investment of $152 million, the transfer of individual and quasi-government EFPAs would be transferred at full value into annuities in the new company.
Using the second approach, requiring investment of $103 million, individual EFPAs would be transferred at full value into annuities which quasi-government EFPAs would be converted into shares.
The third approach is based on $94 million in investment and would see the principal balance of individual and quasi-government EFPAs being transferred into annuities while interest would take the form of shares.
Under the final possibility, the principal of individual EFPAs would be transferred into annuities while the interest would be converted to shares while quasi-governmental EFPAs would be turned into shares.
This investment would require $56 million.
Jordan said that the court had concurred with the options and now “the approach is to continue the consultations with governments in respect of funding”.
He noted Deloitte was seeking, where possible, a consistent result for policyholders in all jurisdictions.
“I think this is critical because while we recognize that there are different levels of policyholder liabilities in each jurisdiction and different levels of assets, ultimately its all the same company,” he said.
Jordan added that the Barbados Government was actively in discussion with governments across the region in respect of what level of funding would be made available.
Eastern Caribbean countries involved are Anguilla, Antigua, Grenada, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Montserrat, Dominica, St Kitts & Nevis and St Lucia. (NB)
