The liquidator of collapsed Queenstown-based boutique insurer Western Pacific Insurance is using debt collection agencies to recover ''significant'' unremitted premiums held by insurance brokers, part of more than $750,000 in debts.
Two and a-half years after Western's collapse, liquidator Grant Thornton is still predicting the liquidation is ''unlikely'' to be completed within the next six months. The company collapsed in April 2011.
Grant Thornton was reliant on reinsurers' payouts to reimburse Christchurch claimants and had recently ''submitted a further claim to a panel of reinsurers'', Grant Thornton said in its latest, statutory, six-monthly report on the state of affairs.
Excluding an estimated $17.68 million which will not be available in any form for unsecured creditors, Western policy claims for Christchurch's two earthquakes amount to $48.32 million, but only $32.19 million is available from Western's reinsurers - leaving a $16.13 million shortfall.
Western's failure leaves a total estimated shortfall of $33.8 million. Western once held 7000 policies across the world, amounting to $10 billion in insurance cover, but collapsed when just $6 million of claims were filed after Christchurch's earthquakes, claims which at one point rose to $65 million.
Western was operated by Queenstown-based Graham Smolenski and his brother-in-law, Jeff McNally.
In mid-June, Grant Thornton received $1.93 million from an unidentified reinsurer, which had been discounted by $554,000.
There were ''significant unremitted premiums'' held by insurance brokers, and during the past six months more than $140,000 had been received from debtors, brokers and individual policy-holders.
Liquidators' costs for the two months to September 30, including offices, legal fees and insurance, were $49,500, and total more than $900,000 to date.
