JavaScript is disabled in your web browser or browser is too old to support JavaScript. Today almost all web pages contain JavaScript, a scripting programming language that runs on visitor's web browser. It makes web pages functional for specific purposes and if disabled for some reason, the content or the functionality of the web page can be limited or unavailable.

Sunday, June 1, 2025

Scotia exec appeals to Imbert: Make Insurance Bill top priority

by

20160330

As Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert pre­pares to de­liv­er his mid-term bud­get re­view next week, an in­sur­ance ex­ec­u­tive is ap­peal­ing to him to make sure the long-de­layed In­sur­ance Bill is high on Gov­ern­ment's leg­isla­tive agen­da.

Robert Sover­all, man­ag­ing di­rec­tor of Sco­tia Life of T&T (Sco­tia In­sur­ance) said even as the Gov­ern­ment seeks to de­vise new strate­gies to cush­ion cit­i­zens from the ef­fects the re­ces­sion and the im­pact of falling en­er­gy prices, mak­ing the Bill law is too im­por­tant not to be a pri­or­i­ty.

He said more than five years af­ter re­vi­sions to the Bill were made and the doc­u­ment put out for pub­lic com­ment, it is time, for key steps in the process to be com­plet­ed so that in­sur­ers can be­gin con­duct­ing busi­ness un­der mod­ern rules.

Cit­ing the fall­out from the Cli­co and Hin­du Cred­it Union de­ba­cles, Sover­all said there are in­creas­ing calls for new cap­i­tal­i­sa­tion mea­sures for in­sur­ance com­pa­nies among the suite of rec­om­men­da­tions for the pro­tec­tion of pol­i­cy hold­ers.

Sover­all, a di­rec­tor on the board of the As­so­ci­a­tion of T&T In­sur­ance Com­pa­nies (AT­TIC), said the Cen­tral Bank had con­sult­ed with in­dus­try play­ers for more than 60 months, dur­ing which time in­sur­ance of­fi­cials were co-op­er­a­tive and par­tic­i­pa­tive with prac­ti­cal sug­ges­tions on the way for­ward for the in­dus­try.

"We ful­ly sup­port the most re­cent draft that is avail­able and all the pro­vi­sions with­in that Bill. For var­i­ous rea­sons, we have not been able to pass that piece of leg­is­la­tion but I am sure that the new in­sur­ance leg­is­la­tion will be high on their pri­or­i­ty," he said.

"The Bill was last laid in Par­lia­ment (in Ju­ly). When Par­lia­ment was pro­rogued in Ju­ly it lapsed. What will be re­quired now is for that Bill to be re-laid, there will prob­a­bly be a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee (JSC) ap­point­ed to re­view all of the tech­ni­cal as­pects of the Bill, be­cause in­sur­ance leg­is­la­tion is very tech­ni­cal and Mem­bers of Par­lia­ment would prob­a­bly want some­body to look at it in de­tail. Once the JSC re­views it, they would then rec­om­mend for both Hous­es to ap­prove and I sus­pect that ap­proval will come quick­ly there­after," he said.

Sover­all said the in­dus­try cur­rent­ly op­er­ates un­der the In­sur­ance Act of 1980, which had been draft­ed many years be­fore it ac­tu­al­ly came in­to force. He said there have been many new de­vel­op­ments in the fi­nan­cial ser­vices sec­tor and in the in­sur­ance in­dus­try since then.

"That leg­is­la­tion would not nec­es­sar­i­ly have an­tic­i­pat­ed all of the de­vel­op­ing ar­eas, par­tic­u­lar­ly with re­gards to prod­ucts and how they are ser­viced and how they op­er­ate, so that leg­is­la­tion cer­tain­ly needs to be up­dat­ed.

"There have been sev­er­al amend­ments to that leg­is­la­tion, the most re­cent be­ing in 2009 cit­ing the chal­lenges a cou­ple of in­sur­ance com­pa­ny found them­selves in. There were two sets of amend­ments in 2004 and 2007 but I be­lieve that there is a need to have a full over­haul of the leg­is­la­tion. We will be very hap­py to see that passed quick­ly," said.

About the Bill

The In­sur­ance Bill 2015 pro­vides a new reg­u­la­to­ry frame­work for the in­sur­ance in­dus­try and pro­vides for the reg­u­la­tion of pri­vate­ly ad­min­is­tered pen­sion fund plans.

When it be­comes law it will re­peal the ex­ist­ing In­sur­ance Act, Chap 84.01.

The Bill was in­tro­duced in the Sen­ate on April 21, 2015 by Fi­nance Min­is­ter Lar­ry Howai and was de­bat­ed over four sit­tings in the Up­per House. In pi­lot­ing de­bate of the leg­is­la­tion, Howai said the process of leg­isla­tive re­form had start­ed sev­er­al years ear­li­er in 2001 and over that time the Cen­tral Bank can con­duct­ed ex­ten­sive con­sul­ta­tions with in­dus­try stake­hold­ers.

At that time he told the Sen­ate: "What we have sought to do is in­tro­duce a Bill that is fair­ly com­pre­hen­sive. A lot of work has gone in­to it, a lot of feed­back from their in­dus­try, a lot of par­tic­i­pa­tion by stake­hold­ers, a lot of time and ef­fort by the reg­u­la­tors to get to the point where we think we have a fair­ly com­pre­hen­sive piece of leg­is­la­tion."

The Bill was passed by the Up­per House on May 26, with 23 vot­ing in sup­port, none against and four ab­sten­tions.

Howai laid the Bill in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on May 27 and it was de­bat­ed at the sit­ting of May 29 but lapsed on June 17, 2015.?


Related articles

Sponsored

Weather

PORT OF SPAIN WEATHER

Sponsored