PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad - Although it is a case of closing the barn door after the horse has bolted, the Insurance Bill 2013 is a welcome piece of legislation which we hope will eliminate the possibility of any future recurrence along the lines of the CL Financial disaster.
The unanimous parliamentary support for the bill reflects the widespread view that this legislation is long overdue for a public that has repeatedly fallen prey to unscrupulous and poorly managed insurance companies.
It is, however, a sad reflection of the priorities of the legislative agenda of successive governments that a bill of such importance should have taken so long to come to Parliament. In between its gestation in 2002 and its appearance in Parliament last month, Trinidad and Tobago suffered the 2009 cataclysmic collapse of the CL Financial Group which has cost taxpayers an estimated $20 billion and counting. So while we welcome this legislation, we must not lose sight of the heavy price we pay for the failure to develop a pro-active approach to national issues.