Western Pacific Insurance policy holders get pay out

Western Pacific Insurance policy holders get pay out

The liquidators of Western Pacific Insurance Limited are making their first payment to Western Pacific’s Canterbury policy holders who are mainly holders of commercial buildings, say the liquidators David Ruscoe and Richard Simpson of accounting and advisory firm Grant Thornton.

Mr Ruscoe says “the liquidators are delighted to be able to begin the pay-out. We always knew this would be a difficult case to manage and it would take time to resolve. Unfortunately, Western Pacific had insufficient reinsurance in place to be able to fully deal with the extent of the losses.

“We are making an initial distribution of 35% of the value of accepted claims for the September 2010 Christchurch earthquake and 20% for the February 2011 earthquake.

“The level of pay-out for each earthquake is different because of the different level of re-insurance held by Western Pacific and because of the higher value of claims for the February earthquake.

“Further payments are expected to be made to the Canterbury policy holders over the next few months once additional money is received from reinsurers. We estimate additional payments for the 2010 earthquake claims will range from 20% to 40% of assessed losses and between 15% and 20% for 2011.

“The court has determined the Canterbury policy holders have priority to receive Western Pacific’s reinsurance proceeds. As a result, other creditors of Western Pacific are unlikely to receive payment of amounts due to them,” said Mr Ruscoe.

Western Pacific was placed into liquidation by its shareholders in April 2011.

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