The Clico Policyholders Group (CPG) has taken note of certain statements in a letter to the Editor, headlined “GORTT did bail out CL Financial” published in your Business Guardian Edition of October 17, 2024, purportedly penned by an individual who identified himself as Colm Imbert.
Firstly, the CPG wishes to state for the record that if this letter writer is the same Colm Imbert who holds the office of Minister of Finance, we are indeed disappointed, but not surprised, by this veiled attempt to negate the legitimate and valid claims of ALL assenting Clico Executive Flexible Premium Annuity (EFPA) policyholders, by singling out and targetting the head of the group, Peter Permell, via this false narrative that he somehow sold his policies. Nothing could be further from the truth and this is clearly a classic case of ignore the message and try to “shoot” the group’s messenger.
In fact, what the letter writer really seems to be attempting to do, by inference, is to state that ALL assenting EFPA policyholders sold their policies and as such are not entitled to be paid their residual balances of 15 per cent plus accrued interest.
This is an issue that the CPG has comprehensively dealt with in an article published on September 11 in the Trinidad Guardian newspaper.
More importantly, it begs the question, why would the write of the letter to the Business Guardian, who is purportedly a representative of the current administration, adopt such an callous and uncaring position, particularly in circumstances where:
1. One of the key objectives of the “Clico bailout” was to protect the interests of all policyholders;
2. Policyholders have suffered significant hardships over the past 15 years since the collapse of Clico in 2009. Some have even died;
3. In 2023, Clico faithfully satisfied its debt obligation to repay the government the remaining $1 billion that was owed;
4. Clico’s 2023 audited financial statements disclose a whopping $3.18 billion in accumulated surplus and $2.30 billion in net profit;
5. The payment of the residual balances to assenting policyholders is the sole responsibility of Clico and therefore will not be a drain on the government treasury;
6. There is no legal framework under the Insurance Act that allows a policyholder to sell his or her policy and moreover the Act only allows for a policy to be assigned. In fact, the very document that policyholders had to sign in order to accept the government’s offer is called a “Deed of Assignment and Declaration of Trust’;
7. Pursuant to Section 170 (6) of the Act, “An assignee under a duly registered assignment shall have all the powers and be subject to all the liabilities of the assignor under the policy, and may sue in his name on the policy, but nothing in this section shall be construed so as to admit the assignee to membership of an insurer or to deprive the assignor of his membership in respect of a policy, except as provided in the instruments constituting the insurer or in its articles of incorporation, by-laws or other constituent document;” and
8. There are over 15,000 resident policyholders of adult age who are all affected by the non-payment of these residual balances at a time when the country is quickly heading into a general election which may be called sooner rather than later.
Finally, it is important to note that the above list is by no means exhaustive and we are firmly committed to pursue this matter until we get our just due.
