The Cen­tral Bank of T&T an­nounced yes­ter­day that it had made an ap­pli­ca­tion for leave to pe­ti­tion the Court for the wind­ing up of British Amer­i­can In­sur­ance Com­pa­ny (Trinidad) Lim­it­ed (BAT).

In a news re­lease, the Cen­tral Bank said the wind­ing up of BAT has be­come nec­es­sary be­cause of the fi­nan­cial po­si­tion of the com­pa­ny.

The bank said BAT has ad­e­quate as­sets set aside to en­sure that tra­di­tion­al pol­i­cy­hold­ers (that is, the hold­ers of or­di­nary and in­dus­tri­al life in­sur­ance poli­cies; ac­ci­dent and sick­ness in­sur­ance poli­cies; dis­abil­i­ty in­come poli­cies and an­nu­ities) re­ceive their due pay­ments and ben­e­fits. How­ev­er, the com­pa­ny does not have the as­sets to be able to re­pay its oth­er debts and is, there­fore, in­sol­vent.

“The In­sur­ance Act 2018, which is the law gov­ern­ing in­sur­ers, re­quires that the Cen­tral Bank take nec­es­sary ac­tion when an in­sur­ance com­pa­ny con­tin­ues to be in­sol­vent. BAT was un­able to im­prove its fi­nan­cial po­si­tion in spite of its best ef­forts, and in this cir­cum­stance, liq­ui­da­tion or wind­ing up of the com­pa­ny is the ap­pro­pri­ate course of ac­tion to be tak­en,” said the Bank.

T&T’s reg­u­la­tor of fi­nan­cial in­sti­tu­tions said BAT’s pol­i­cy­hold­ers will con­tin­ue to be ser­viced in the usu­al way dur­ing this process.

“Your poli­cies re­main in ef­fect, and you will con­tin­ue to re­ceive all your con­trac­tu­al­ly due pay­ments and ben­e­fits (in­clud­ing your pen­sions) con­sis­tent with the terms and con­di­tions con­tained in the pol­i­cy agree­ments. This is pos­si­ble be­cause the Gov­ern­ment of the Re­pub­lic of Trinidad and To­ba­go, among oth­er things, in­ject­ed suf­fi­cient as­sets in­to the com­pa­ny specif­i­cal­ly to safe­guard pol­i­cy­hold­ers’ in­ter­ests and the tra­di­tion­al in­sur­ance port­fo­lio,” said the Cen­tral Bank.

The in­sti­tu­tion said it could not say how long the process of wind­ing up would take as it is at the stage of an Ap­pli­ca­tion for leave which has to be de­ter­mined by the Court.

Once part of the CL Fi­nan­cial em­pire, BAT col­lapsed in 2009, along with Cli­co, Cli­co In­vest­ment Bank and Caribbean Mon­ey Mar­ket Bro­kers.