Gonsalves: BAICO is making progress

Seven firms have shown an interest in taking over the Life Insurance portfolio of British American Insurance Company.{{more}}

While he could not identify the individual firms out of fear of compromising the process, Prime Minister Dr. Ralph Gonsalves said that good progress has been made so far.

He was at the time responding to a question put by Leader of the Opposition, Arnhim Eustace in the House of Assembly on Tuesday, November 22.

Eustace had asked how many firms had shown an interest in taking over the life insurance portfolio of BAICO.

“We will go very shortly to the due diligence stage and then they will be required to submit bids,” the prime minister said in his response.

“That’s where we are, we are making progress.”

Earlier this year, Gonsalves had indicated that a decision had been taken by the Heads of the Eastern Caribbean Currency Union (ECCU) to capitalize the traditional life fund through the sale of the existing policies to another insurance company.

He explained that this was being done in the same manner with which the medical insurance fund was set up.

The measure of selling the existing BAICO life insurance policies is expected to take care of the 22,000 policy holders across the currency union and the 4,100 policy holders here in St Vincent and the Grenadines.