Analysing HIH's recent events

A detailed Summary of Analysing HIH's recent events

On March 15, 2001, Australia¯s second largest insurance company HIH collapsed and an application for its liquidation was submitted. It soon escalated into Australia¯s biggest corporate failure in June after the insurer¯s final tally of losses was estimated to be about $3 billion in Australia and almost $5 billion worldwide, very well above the early estimate of $1 billion . HIH¯s demise was mainly due to the criminal and unethical activities that the company directors committed, as well as risk management practices and poor decision-making. As a result, most HIH¯s creditors, policyholders, shareholders, employees and many other businesses and departments, who are innocent victims, have been enormously affected.

In the early 1990s, HIH quickly expended business overseas through the Europe and the United States. However, it did not have the control in place. HIH started to reinsure from 1997 and it had been accepting too many risky insurance claims from other insurance companies. Thus, it did not set aside enough capital to pay out over a number of years to policyholders. For example, HIH paid couples of hundred million dollars to cover workers compensation in California by raising its premium rates in another countries. Meanwhil

Furthermore, the under-reserved position of the insurance group was greatly exaggerated when HIH bought Rodney Adler¯s FAI Insurance for $275 million by depressing share price in the late 1998. However, it escalated in September 2000 when it sold half of its personal insurance operations to the German insurer Allianz for $325 million, including the FAI brands. It clearly showed that the company was no longer viable because the amount it had to pay out on claims exceeded the income it receives through premiums and investments. Likewise, HIH used $400 million to build up trust fund in order to raise the insurance prises up. As the group¯s share price has been steadily falling, it is well known that HIH did not carry out due diligence. On April 11, HIH¯s provisional liquidator Tony McGrath, of KPMG, said that HIH¯s financial position was worse by °a very significant margin± than was stated in the balance sheet. As a result, creditors and policyholders of the insurance group were the main victims. It is said that unsecured creditors of HIH Insurance were likely to recover only half, and probably less, of what they were owed. Mr. McGrath said: °it is likely that the ultimate return to creditors across the board will be within that range of 50 cents in the dollar or less.± In addition, a survey revealed that lawyers, doctors and other professionals are being hit by a surge in business insurance premiums as a result of the collapse of HIH. It is exemplified that premiums in some classes of business insurance had risen twice; as well as general insurance premiums are reported to have increased by 10 to 15 per cent over the past year. As a result, policyholders of the insurer had a greater loss without knowing the reasons.

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Approximate Word count = 1250
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: Foreign