North American Fidelity & Guarantee

A few years ago, the then head of enforcement for the Bermuda Monetary Authority was rendered apoplectic on stage at an OffshoreAlert Conference after being asked to name a single individual or legal entity that the financial services regulator had ever penalized or disciplined since it was established in 1969. It's difficult to come up with names off the top of your head when they number so few. Financial regulators in the United States penalize more financial miscreants in a typical afternoon than the BMA has in its entire 46-year history. For promotional purposes, the BMA's message is 'We have one of the three biggest insurance markets in the world. Yes indeed, sniff, sniff, we're the world's risk capital'. For regulatory purposes, the message seems to be 'Insurance market? What insurance market?'.

Creditors of Stockholm Re (Bermuda) Ltd., which went into liquidation in January, 1995, are likely to receive just 30 cents on the dollar when all is said and done. A spokesman for liquidator Deloitte & Touche in London said that a dividend of 20 cents on the dollar was paid to creditors at the end of May, 2001, with a second dividend due to follow later this year.

John Grant Marshall, a Canadian who was the nominal President of the fraudulent, Bermuda-based reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee, is being sued by the Bank of Bermuda for $265,022. The bank filed a lawsuit against the Bermuda resident and his wife, Greta Lois Marshall, at Bermuda Supreme Court on July 13, 2000. No further details are publicly available.

California-based Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Co. has won a second arbitration over its refusal to pay multi-million dollar reinsurance claims on coverage brokered by Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings. The losing party was Alan R. Bird, on his own behalf and representing all members of Lloyd's Syndicate 103 for the 1993/94 years of account.

Interim Arbitration Award and Reasons for Interim Award in Transamerica Occidental Life Insurance Co. v. Alan R. Bird, on his own behalf and as representative of all the members of Syndicate 103 at Lloyd's for 1993 and 1994.

Inside Bermuda has obtained specific details about four of the seven lawsuits filed against Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings and/or related entities in the High Court of Justice, Queen's Bench Division Commercial Court, in the UK.

Lloyd's Regulatory Board, the body that regulates the Lloyd's of London market, is soon to begin an investigation into Bermuda-based Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings that, in the worst scenario, could lead to the company's Lloyd's broking licence being suspended or even revoked.

The seemingly never-ending flow of negative information that is passed our way about Bermuda-based Stirling Cooke Brown Holdings Limited continued this month when our attention was drawn to Page 43 of the 1994 'Wishful Thinking' report published by a US congressional sub-committee chaired by John Dingell. The content of this page formed part of a look at the illegal activities of Carlos Miro, who received a lengthy prison sentence in the US for insurance fraud in connection with his Louisiana-based company, Anglo-American Insurance, which also had a UK arm.

The US Attorney's office has filed sealed indictments against two people believed to have been responsible for one of the world's biggest insurance frauds, involving Dai Ichi Kyoto Re, Kobe Re and North American Fidelity & Guarantee, Offshore Alert can reveal.

Two reports into Stirling Cooke Brown that were compiled two years ago by a London firm of insurance investigators on behalf of a client gives an interesting insight into the history of the Bermuda-based insurance broker, particularly allegations that the company was involved in a reinsurance spiral. The alleged spiral that we have been told has dragged Stirling Cooke and the Clarendon group into arbitrations in London at least partly involves North American Fidelity & Guarantee and Stockholm Re (Bermuda).

Criminal Indictment in USA v. Zenichi Konishi and John Doe, a.k.a. Steven Baker, at the U. S. District Court for the District of Delaware.

Two applications have been filed at Bermuda Supreme Court recently in relation to an arbitration between Stirling Cooke Brown subsidiary Raydon Underwriting Management and Stockholm Re (Bermuda), which folded a few years ago.

A British television programme claiming that a "mysterious Irishman" called Steven Baker was being sought in connection with the worldwide insurance fraud that goes by the name of Dai Ichi Kyoto Re caused a lot of interest in Bermuda. One of Dai Ichi's sister companies, North American Fidelity & Guarantee, had a brief but extremely profitable and very fraudulent one-year trading spell in Bermuda in 1992/1993. The company began life as a shelf company set up in October, 1989, by ambitious Bermuda lawyer Lynda Milligan-Whyte.

National Underwriters Agency Limited (In Liquidation) vs. North American Fidelity & Guarantee Limited - Bermuda Supreme Court

Hopewell International Insurance Limited vs. Fidelity & Guarantee SA (formerly North American Fidelity & Guarantee Limited) et al. - Bermuda Supreme Court

Bermuda-based Hopewell International Insurance Ltd has been awarded $1 million against North American Fidelity & Guarantee, a reinsurance company that was kicked out of Bermuda by government for failing to prove it had the $100 million of assets the firm claimed it had.

A fourth legal action has been brought against controversial reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee, which moved to Belgium in 1993 after being kicked out of Bermuda by the government.London-based CRM Insurance Services Ltd is suing NAF&G and two related companies, Kobe Reinsurance and Dai Ichi Kyoto Reinsurance Company, for $2.89 million in the High Court of the United Kingdom. The action was filed on February 28.

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee - which operated in Bermuda for just over a year before being asked to leave by the island's government - is being sued yet again.Already a defendant in two actions totalling $4.7 million stemming from its short time in Bermuda, a third action for approximately $2.5 million was filed against NAF&G by New York Marine & General Insurance Company at Bermuda Supreme Court on April 7.

New York Marine & General Insurance Company vs. North American Fidelity & Guarantee Limited - Bermuda Supreme Court

Former head of Bermuda National Bank John Grant Marshall is facing more financial anguish stemming from his spell as a director of controversial reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee.NAF&G, which is already being sued for $3.7 million at Bermuda Supreme Court in a claim last year, has had a new $1 million action brought against it by Bermuda-based Hopewell International Insurance Ltd, which is a reinsurance pool for captive insurance firms.

Hopewell International Insurance Limited vs. North American Fidelity & Guarantee Limited S.A. (formerly North American Fidelity & Guarantee Limited) - Bermuda Supreme Court

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee, which is being sued for $4 million in Bermuda, moved its operations from Bermuda to Belgium in 1993 not long after failing to comply with a request to show proof of its capital, we have been told.And some insurance observers believe the company, which offered property, marine, aviation and mortgage guarantee coverage and claimed to have capital of $100 million, may have actually had very few funds available to meet claims during the year it operated in Bermuda.

Reinsurer North American Fidelity & Guarantee is being sued for almost $4 million in Bermuda, where it operated for only about a year before moving to Belgium last October.A lawsuit has been filed against the company by Bermuda-based Raydon Underwriting Management Company, which operated from the same building in Hamilton.

Raydon Underwriting Management Company Limited vs. North American Fidelity and Guarantee Limited - Bermuda Supreme Court