gail.alexander@guardian.co.tt
Will Clico policyholders hold Government to account after the Canadian Institute of Actuaries (CIA) sanctioned former Clico external actuary Paul Ngai last Monday?
That’s the question which former Clico CEO/actuary Gene Dziadyk has raised after the CIA’s sanction against Ngai. The action stemmed from a complaint which Dziadyk made in 2016 to the CIA about Ngai’s actions with Clico. Dziadyk alleged Ngai had allowed his services to enable the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago to evade the laws governing financial institutions in Trinidad and Tobago, and caused grievous damage to policyholders.
Dziadyk claimed Ngai served as CLICO’s valuation actuary over 2004-2018 and his role was to value and certify CLICO’s policy liabilities for its long-term insurance business.
He said he made his complaint to the CIA concerning lack of fulfilling the Institute’s responsibility to the public. Dziadyk said the public had a right to know what Ngai was doing with CLICO’s books. He accused Ngai of providing services to T&T authorities that “were to the detriment of the public to whom he has a duty of care and that violated the CIA’s Rules of Professional Conduct.”
A subgroup of the CIA’s Committee on Professional Conduct (CPC) was appointed to review allegation against Ngai. A team investigated whether Ngai’s conduct was appropriate when providing actuarial opinions on the Clico resolution plan whether Ngai should have stated an opposition to the resolution plan on the basis of inappropriate treatment of specific categories of policyholders.
After investigations, the CIA last week issued notice that its team recommended that Ngai be reprimanded and he must attend a professionalism workshop. The CIA said Ngai pleaded guilty to the charge and accepted the sanction regarding professional conduct.
Dziadyk said, “Armed with this CIA charge that Ngai violated the public trust will Clico policyholders unite and hold Government accountable to grievous injury in front of a judge in a court of law?.”
On the implications of the decision by the CIA and implications for Clico policyholders, Dziadyk added, “The CIA is a professional body and ruled that Ngai violated its Rules of Professional Conduct. Ngai didn’t fulfil his responsibility to the public under a resolution plan into which he had no input. This approach is irresponsible, as many policyholders are impacted in different ways.”
Clico Policyholders Group chairman Peter Permell who called for probe of the situation, added, “We hear Ngai has resigned as the external actuary of Clico. But his signature is actually on Clico’s latest actuarial certification of June 2019.
“From our perspective there’s potential for litigation against Clico since the company contracted him to do work; and also by extension Central Bank perhaps, as the Bank had oversight of Clico,”
“The sanction made it clear Ngai was allegedly in professional misconduct. The question is, to what end did this obtain and why was he doing this- underestimating the value of the short term policyholders’ liability and other issues. Did he act alone or were others complicit in part of a conspiracy?”