•  AM Best the renowned international rating agency for insurance companies downgraded CLICO in 2007 from A- to B+++; B+++ is still a solid rating for an insurance company. •  CLICO posted healthy “bank” profits in each year since 2004. With these credentials, intervening in CLICO, notwithstanding its inherent vulnerabilities, would have been difficult to justify.
It would certainly have prompted a long dragged out legal battle which could have had serious knockon effects both for CLICO and for the rest of the financial system. With slow progress being made via moral suasion and with new legislation on the way the case for intervention was even less defensible.