Quinn Insurance in Administration

[armaghniac]

Agree totally. Liberty were given a ridulous deal by Anglo. They allowed Liberty to take all the good points from the business without having to take any of the liabilities. Crazy crazy deal!!

Perhaps. But Liberty have the capital and the expertise to save the good parts of the business and the jobs. Had Quinn or Anglo remained in charge the good business would have drifted away as people would not have faith that they would be paid if they had a claim, so all that would have been left was the liabilities in any case.

[guy crouchback]

Agree totally. Liberty were given a ridulous deal by Anglo. They allowed Liberty to take all the good points from the business without having to take any of the liabilities. Crazy crazy deal!!

Perhaps. But Liberty have the capital and the expertise to save the good parts of the business and the jobs. Had Quinn or Anglo remained in charge the good business would have drifted away as people would not have faith that they would be paid if they had a claim, so all that would have been left was the liabilities in any case.

this.
the deal to sell to liberty was all about saving the jobs and was in fact a great deal for the state and the people of cavan.
liberty agreed to keep the business going as a going concern in return for not having to take on the losses.

if this had not happened the administrator/liquidator would have sold off the ''book of business'' that was preforming to some other company (there were a few sniffing around) and they would have subsumed it within their own company resulting in the complete closure of Quinn and wholesale job losses.
either way the state would have hap to pick up the tab for the losses.

[supersarsfields]

Agree totally. Liberty were given a ridiculous deal by Anglo. They allowed Liberty to take all the good points from the business without having to take any of the liabilities. Crazy crazy deal!!

Perhaps. But Liberty have the capital and the expertise to save the good parts of the business and the jobs. Had Quinn or Anglo remained in charge the good business would have drifted away as people would not have faith that they would be paid if they had a claim, so all that would have been left was the liabilities in any case.

Liberty put up 100M Euro total, that was it and got 49% of all the good parts of the business. I also disagree that people would have drifted away. There was never a risk of claims not being paid as virtually ever policy would have had to claim for that to be a risk. The company could have continued to trade without the exposure to the unprofitable sections of the business. QIL had already learned from their costly mistakes in the UK markets and would have been in a position to trade out of it. The profits wouldn't have been diverted of so the losses made on the UK market would have been to a certain extent reduced. They company was well run as the administrators have previously said and have well below average settlement figures due to their fast track approach. A point that the administrators refused to take into account when setting reserves.

[guy crouchback]

Agree totally. Liberty were given a ridiculous deal by Anglo. They allowed Liberty to take all the good points from the business without having to take any of the liabilities. Crazy crazy deal!!

Perhaps. But Liberty have the capital and the expertise to save the good parts of the business and the jobs. Had Quinn or Anglo remained in charge the good business would have drifted away as people would not have faith that they would be paid if they had a claim, so all that would have been left was the liabilities in any case.

Liberty put up 100M Euro total, that was it and got 49% of all the good parts of the business. I also disagree that people would have drifted away. There was never a risk of claims not being paid as virtually ever policy would have had to claim for that to be a risk. The company could have continued to trade without the exposure to the unprofitable sections of the business. QIL had already learned from their costly mistakes in the UK markets and would have been in a position to trade out of it. The profits wouldn't have been diverted of so the losses made on the UK market would have been to a certain extent reduced. They company was well run as the administrators have previously said and have well below average settlement figures due to their fast track approach. A point that the administrators refused to take into account when setting reserves.

i have not been involved in this debate and i have no axe to grind but i am in the insurance business and I'm afraid to say that nearly everything you have said above is incorrect.

it was not a question of people drifting away the book of business would have been sold and the company closed down.
the stuff about claims is nonsense Quinn were over exposed for years and everyone including the regulator new it. new European regulation coming in this Autumn called solvency 2 require much higher reserves. this has to  taken into account when considering the reserves Quinn would need. ( this will effect everyone expect to see premiums climb over the next 2 years).

[supersarsfields]

I was in the Insurance business for years myself guy so I'll agree to disagree with you.

QIL had been a profitable company, and it was it's punt into the UK market that caused the massive losses. Mostly due to indemnity insurance for Solicitors etc. But previous to administration QIL had already identified these areas as loss making and were in the process of moving away from these areas. Granted the business already established had to be covered and that was a costly mistake. But with these loss making areas closed the company still had the profitable areas to balance with some of the losses ( Unlike now were the profits of the successful areas are being ringfenced).

Lets be honest QIL wasn't the only insurance company in Ireland that wasn't meeting the targets on solvency. Nor was it the worst. New regulation coming in this Autumn has little effect over what happened 2 Plus years ago so no harm that's an irrelevance.

[guy crouchback]

your right they were/are not the only ones with problems metting solvency targets, but solvency 2 has been flagged for years and companies have had to increase there levels year on year to be ready for 2012. so this would have been a factor with Quinn but no more a factor then with anyone else i suppose.

except it appears that there were all sorts of shenanigans going on within Quinn with insurance company money being used in other parts of the Quinn group.( or to support share deals or whatever it is) this is completely forbidden and a massive breach of fundamental insurance regulations.  there is no way the company could have been allow to go on as it was after this.

the argument that Quinn direct could have traded its way out of its UK losses in a collapsing irish economy is wishfull thing at best, once it emerged they did not have the adequate reserves they were fucked. their business model was a cowboy approach to underwriting for years and was based on making profits to hide the claims book losses.

in the insurance market you can get away with this for a while but in the end it will catch up with you.

[supersarsfields]

your right they were/are not the only ones with problems metting solvency targets, but solvency 2 has been flagged for years and companies have had to increase there levels year on year to be ready for 2012. so this would have been a factor with Quinn but no more a factor then with anyone else i suppose.

except it appears that there were all sorts of shenanigans going on within Quinn with insurance company money being used in other parts of the Quinn group.( or to support share deals or whatever it is) this is completely forbidden and a massive breach of fundamental insurance regulations.  there is no way the company could have been allow to go on as it was after this.
the argument that Quinn direct could have traded its way out of its UK losses in a collapsing irish economy is wishfull thing at best, once it emerged they did not have the adequate reserves they were fucked. their business model was a cowboy approach to underwriting for years and was based on making profits to hide the claims book losses.

in the insurance market you can get away with this for a while but in the end it will catch up with you.

Except that it was. QIL was fined in 2008 for the movement of money and SQ had to step down. But the company was allowed to continue on afterwards.
Again I'll disagree with you on the last paragraph. the trading out of the losses wouldn't have been limited to the ROI market. The UK and NI markets in vehicle insurance were still profitable (Hence the adnministrators opening up these markets again). I'll agree the big problem with QIL was that it grew too big too quickly in the UK and and suffered costs as it had over exposed itself to areas of risk, when slower entry would have prevented such losses.

[boojangles]

Agree totally. Liberty were given a ridiculous deal by Anglo. They allowed Liberty to take all the good points from the business without having to take any of the liabilities. Crazy crazy deal!!

Perhaps. But Liberty have the capital and the expertise to save the good parts of the business and the jobs. Had Quinn or Anglo remained in charge the good business would have drifted away as people would not have faith that they would be paid if they had a claim, so all that would have been left was the liabilities in any case.

Liberty put up 100M Euro total, that was it and got 49% of all the good parts of the business. I also disagree that people would have drifted away. There was never a risk of claims not being paid as virtually ever policy would have had to claim for that to be a risk. The company could have continued to trade without the exposure to the unprofitable sections of the business. QIL had already learned from their costly mistakes in the UK markets and would have been in a position to trade out of it. The profits wouldn't have been diverted of so the losses made on the UK market would have been to a certain extent reduced. They company was well run as the administrators have previously said and have well below average settlement figures due to their fast track approach. A point that the administrators refused to take into account when setting reserves.

i have not been involved in this debate and i have no axe to grind but i am in the insurance business and I'm afraid to say that nearly everything you have said above is incorrect.

it was not a question of people drifting away the book of business would have been sold and the company closed down.
the stuff about claims is nonsense Quinn were over exposed for years and everyone including the regulator new it. new European regulation coming in this Autumn called solvency 2 require much higher reserves. this has to  taken into account when considering the reserves Quinn would need. ( this will effect everyone expect to see premiums climb over the next 2 years).

Yes the Regulator. He knew a lot didn't he. He was definitely on top of things wasn't he.

Like most people including myself you don't know the full details so quit speaking half truths as if they are fact.
Hindsight sure does get some people up on their high horses round here.

[orangeman]

Has any one answered the question on whether Quinn Insurance had an actuarial department or even one actuarist on board to calculate the risk or was the business run on a wing and a prayer as would appear to be the philosophy of the group?

How do you work that out ?

[boojangles]

Has any one answered the question on whether Quinn Insurance had an actuarial department or even one actuarist on board to calculate the risk or was the business run on a wing and a prayer as would appear to be the philosophy of the group?

I think he said in his interview with Vincent B last week that he never employed actuaries.

If a company that employed well over 1000 people for over a decade and treated their staff extremely well appears to be run on a wing and a prayer then maybe this wing and a prayer philosophy should be studied in greater detail.

[haranguerer]

Reading some of the papers as past while, some of the reporting has been akin to the red tops in England - rags like the Sun etc.

Who gives a shite how much Sean Quinn's wifes handbag cost, what make of jeans or pair of shoes she's wearing or how many bathrooms are in her apartment and what size a television she watches or what her parents worked at etc etc.


I thought Irish newspapers set themselves apart from the gutter type journalism that the English papers peddled, but obviously for the Quinns and a few others, they're going to make an exception.

When did you think that??! Imitators worse than the original, and not half as answerable

[haranguerer]

Has any one answered the question on whether Quinn Insurance had an actuarial department or even one actuarist on board to calculate the risk or was the business run on a wing and a prayer as would appear to be the philosophy of the group?

Lol at your ignorance.

[supersarsfields]

Has any one answered the question on whether Quinn Insurance had an actuarial department or even one actuarist on board to calculate the risk or was the business run on a wing and a prayer as would appear to be the philosophy of the group?

Quinns didn't have an inhouse actuarial department but sub-contracted it out.

The wing and a prayer comment is nonsense.

[haranguerer]

Mr Woodhouse had been unaware of the comment and immediately informed other senior managers in the bank.

His daughter's Twitter account was disabled almost immediately. Mr Quinn, however, wrote a legal letter alleging he had been defamed. This was denied in legal correspondence and the matter appeared to have fizzled out until somehow it emerged again this weekend.

I wonder how. And woodhouse isnt vindictive.

[supersarsfields]

So much for Jim Fitzpatrick's "Facts". He got a right hole blown in them last night and looked completely stumped into the bargin. (Which I have to say I quite enjoyed  )