Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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33. To ask the Minister for Finance the position regarding the failure of a company (details supplied); the number of households that have been impacted by the withdrawal of latent defect insurance; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7367/19]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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The Central Bank has advised my Department that it was notified by the Danish Financial Supervisory Authority ("Danish FSA") on 7 March 2018 that it (Danish FSA) had ordered Alpha Insurance A/S (“Alpha”) to cease writing new business including renewal of existing contracts and business with immediate effect. The Central Bank was further notified on 9 May 2018 by the Danish FSA that the liquidators of the insurance company Alpha had filed a petition for bankruptcy.

The Central Bank has also indicated that as Alpha is a Danish-based insurance firm, it is subject to prudential supervision by the Danish FSA, and therefore the Central Bank had no role in this decision. It has also informed my Department that Alpha was selling non-life insurance policies in Ireland through the broker network on a freedom of services basis and that it also operated in Denmark, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Spain and the United Kingdom.

The insolvency administrator has provided updated figures to the Central Bank as of December 2018 on the latent defects policies. Present figures stand at 1,617 policies, 1,163 of which are currently with the homeowner (these policies were transferred from the developer to the homeowner following completion of the build). The remaining 454 policies were on houses that were not finished and therefore the policy had not transferred to a homeowner at the time of the liquidation i.e. the policy remained with the developer.

The claims handler (BCR Legal Group Limited) confirmed to the Central Bank that its representative CRL wrote to the developers who had purchased these latent defects policies, on two occasions, to advise that Alpha had been placed in bankruptcy, that polices would be cancelled from 11 August 2018 and to request details of the owner of the properties insured under these policies. BCR subsequently wrote to all homeowners affected by the liquidation of Alpha, following receipt of their details from the developers, to advise that as Alpha had gone into liquidation, their latent defects policies had been terminated and that they should consider replacing this policy. BCR also provided these homeowners with an information sheet from the liquidators.

It should be noted that the Danish liquidator of Alpha continues to provide country-specific updates of the latent defects policies on . The Central Bank of Ireland has also published information in relation to Alpha, which it will update if further information becomes available.