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CBL Insurance Limited (in liquidation)

This page provides information on the liquidation of CBL Insurance Limited and our independent review of our supervision of the insurer.

About CBL Insurance Limited

CBL Insurance (CBLI) was a provider of insurance and reinsurance, mostly overseas but with about 1% of revenue from New Zealand insurance business.

We are the ‘home country’ regulator and prudential supervisor of CBLI because the company provided insurance cover in New Zealand and is incorporated in New Zealand.

CBLI was placed into interim liquidation by the High Court in February 2018 on our application following an extensive investigation. This action was taken given our concerns about imprudent management and breach of regulatory directions. The company was placed into full liquidation by the High Court in November 2018.

Independent review

We commissioned an independent review of our supervision of CBLI to identify lessons for ourselves and the insurance regulatory regime.

The review was conducted by John Trowbridge and Mary Scholtens QC and covered the period from CBLI’s licensing in 2013 through to the interim liquidation in February 2018.

We released the review report on 3 July 2019. The review's main recommendations were that we:

  • act decisively, making full use of the powers available to us when in doubt about a company’s financial soundness
  • strengthen the governance obligations of insurers through greater scrutiny and accountability of boards, management and appointed actuaries
  • increase resources to the supervisory team and the policy team to a level consistent with our goals, priorities and risk appetite
  • modify the solvency standard and, if necessary, seek to modify the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 to strengthen the capital management and solvency framework for licensed insurers.

Terms of reference for CBL Insurance review (PDF 434 KB)

CBL RBNZ final report – An independent review for the RBNZ of the supervision of CBL Insurance Ltd (PDF 1.2 MB)

CBL Insurance chronology

A chronology of events covering the period from licensing of CBL Insurance in 2013 through to its liquidation in 2018.

CBL Insurance timeline

High Court Rulings

Affidavits

News Releases

Responses to OIA requests

Creditors and policy holders

If you are owed money by, or hold a policy issued or underwritten by CBL Insurance, then please contact the liquidators at the following email address [email protected].