BASSETERRE, St. Kitts, March 18, 2011 - Senior Minister and former Minister of Finance Dr. the Hon. Timothy Harris, told Parliament that as a citizen and former Minister of Finance, he shared the pain and anguish of all policyholders and interested parties in the financial misfortunes that befell British American and CLICO with the demise of CL Financial.
Dr. Harris complimented officers in the Ministry of Finance including the Registrar of Insurance, Ms. Kerstin Petty for their hard work and professional approach to resolving the issues which emerged in the context of archaic insurance legislation No 14 of 1968. Dr. Harris said that the 1968 Act never provided adequate tools to address the British American and CLICO situations.
In 2009, following the CL Financial, Dr. Harris piloted a modern piece of insurance legislation, Act No 8 of 2009, which gave greater powers to the Registrar of Insurance, increased deposit requirements for insurers and association of insurance underwriters and generally provided for greater transparency and regulation and control of insurance entities. That 2009 Act was being amended at yesterday’s (Mar. 17) sitting of the National Assembly.
Dr. Harris supported the amendment of section 82 of the Insurance Act to increase the deposit requirement of the association of insurance underwriters from $200, 000 per annum to the higher of twenty percentum of insurance premiums net of insurance fees for the year.
The Senior Minister said the amendment provides the potential for a greater pool of resources from which one can draw in the event of an adversity.
Dr. Harris said he focused on working for solutions to the problems as they unfolded but CL Financial group, of which BAICO and CLICO were subsidiaries, was a complex conglomerate with many intervening forces at work.
