THE NEW chief executive of Quinn Insurance hopes to return the business in the Republic to profitability in 2012 and regain some of the customers lost during its 18-month administration process.
Dubliner Pat O’Brien, the chief executive of Liberty Insurance, the parent entity in Ireland for Quinn Insurance and Quinn Direct, said the company would be lossmaking this year, due to the negative effects of the company being in administration and the recession.
“We would expect to make a profit in 2012,” Mr O’Brien said, without citing a number.
Mr O’Brien, who was giving his first interviews since being appointed to head the company’s Irish business, said premium income would be about €200 million this year, down about 40 per cent from when the joint administrators were appointed by the financial regulator in April 2010.
He said Quinn had lost about 35 per cent of its insurance business in the Republic during the administration process. This was most keenly felt in its commercial division, where about 60 to 70 per cent of business was lost during the process.
“A lot of the large accounts left the company during the administration process on the commercial side,” Mr O’Brien explained.
“We want to get those accounts back.
“Liberty has a lot of expertise in the commercial sector. We want to take some of the strengths of our existing operation and bring it to bear on the Quinn operation,” he said.
Mr O’Brien said Liberty’s existing small commercial business in Dublin would work closely with the acquired Quinn operations.
He said Quinn Insurance lost the business of the wider Quinn Group, which mostly comprises manufacturing and leisure entities, during the administration process.
A number of Quinn Insurance’s other commercial clients were also involved in construction and leisure, and the company felt the impact of the downturn in these sectors in the recession.
Mr O’Brien said Liberty would look to broaden Quinn Insurance’s “breadth of products”. This will include kidnap and ransom, environmental, marine and other niche products.
It will also look to house insurance and will seek to broaden its exposure in motor, where it has traditionally focused on young drivers. “We want to broaden out the appeal of the brand, which we feel can be mass market,” he said.
Last Friday, US-based Liberty Mutual Group and its joint venture partner Irish Bank Resolution Corporation – formerly Anglo Irish Bank – were given High Court approval to take over Quinn Insurance’s business in the Republic. They will also manage its business in Northern Ireland and Britain.
The two parties have put €200 million of fresh capital into the business. Liberty’s contribution was €102 million.
“We’re taking on €750 million of insurance liabilities and we have cash supporting those liabilities,” he added. “Quinn Group has also transferred assets to support those liabilities.”
Liberty has also acquired the company’s offices in Cavan, Enniskillen and Blanchardstown, west Dublin for about €20 million, Mr O’Brien said.
Mr O’Brien said the “biggest gap” at Quinn Insurance was on the technical side. For example, there was no actuarial function within the company. “So that’s something we’re addressing. We’re in the process of recruiting an actuarial team .”
A new brand will also be introduced next year.
Mr O’Brien, who has worked for Liberty Mutual for more than a decade, said Quinn Insurance has 280,000 customers and expressed his confidence that Liberty could expand here. “I’m very excited by the opportunity here,” he said. “We are in general optimistic about the economy in the longer term. But it’s going to be a number of years before we see significant growth.”
