High time regulators work to protect insurance customers

The estimated 225 motor claims against failed Gibraltar-based insurer Enterprise Insurance pales in comparison to 1,700 outstanding from the implosion of Setanta Insurance in Malta two years ago. But they face just as much uncertainty.

Neither Gibraltar nor Malta offer an insurance compensation scheme for policyholders caught short by the collapse of a firm in either jurisdiction.

And while UK customers of Enterprise are automatically covered by the country’s Financial Services Compensation Scheme, the issue over who initially carries the can in Ireland is still up in the air.

It will be October before the Supreme Court hears an appeal by the Motor Insurance Bureau of Ireland, an industry-funded body that deals with claims against uninsured drivers, against rulings by lower courts that it pick up the bill as €90 million of Setanta claims remain in limbo.

Meanwhile, the Government’s pledge last week to act on recommendations of a report that motor claims arising from the liquidation of an insurer should be met by the Insurance Compensation Fund, with the MIBI contributing 35 per cent, remains just that – a promise. It will still need to be legislated for.

Claims

Typically a compensation scheme steps in immediately to deal with claims. It, in turn, seeks to recover as much as it can from a defunct insurer’s liquidator. The clients of Enterprise and Setanta have no such luxury.

When Central Bank governor Philip Lane addressed a room full of European insurance executives on a junket to Dublin in May, saying that Europe needs more co-ordination on protection schemes for customers in the event of a firm failing, nobody knew that we would have a "mini-Setanta" within two months. But here we are.

Yet in a market where a company can set up in a 2.6 square mile jurisdiction at the top of Europe and “passport” insurance services unimpeded all over the EU, it’s high time that regulators got together to make sure that customers across the union also enjoyed similar protections.