Fears for 1,000 jobs at Quinn Insurance

MORE than 1,000 job losses are still anticipated at Quinn Insurance, despite the partial reopening of new business lines at its British operations diluting initial job loss estimates.

The British and Northern Irish division makes up around 50% of Quinn Insurance’s business and this week’s partial re-opening of business (for motor insurance for provisional driving licence holders) only accounts for about 10% of that business.

Brian Storey, of Quinn Insurance’s employee committee, said yesterday that employees are “extremely frustrated” at what they see as the “indecision” of the Financial Regulator over the future of the British operation.

Quinn Insurance’s administrators are passing information on the business onto the regulator on an ongoing basis and it is understood they are keen for the regulator to re-open a substantial amount of business lines in Quinn’s UK division.

It had been hoped the re-opening would have stretched wider, to more lines of business, than it actually did.

Mr Storey suggested that more than 1,000 jobs — over Quinn offices in Cavan, Navan, Dublin, Enniskillen, Manchester and London — are now at serious risk. Mr Storey also didn’t accept the charge that the insurance being written by Quinn (UK) was of “too risky” a nature.

The Financial Regulator put out a statement in response, saying it has given all proposals relating to the UK business “full consideration”.

“The Financial Regulator has requested further information and analysis from the administrators in relation to their proposed business plans for the UK market and will give prompt consideration to proposals backed by robust and detailed information, actuarial analysis and pricing. The initial focus of the administrators was to focus on the UK motor market in its plans to the Financial Regulator. Once further detailed information is provided, the Financial Regulator will examine the directions on the QIL UK business, with a view to the re-opening of certain profitable business lines on a phased basis, in consultation with the UK FSA,” the statement added.

QIL’s administrators wrote to staff on Thursday, warning there will be some level of job losses, with redundancies likely by the end of this month.

Meanwhile, Fine Gael TDs and senators representing some of the border counties have urged the regulator to move swiftly and re-open further product lines in Quinn’s UK business to save jobs.