Gov’t orders probe of insurance agency, chief

The Department of Finance is investigating the Insurance Commission and its top official over a domestic steel manufacturer’s allegation that the DOF-attached agency had engaged in “cartelized transactions” with banks and insurance firms.

The DOF said Finance Secretary Carlos G. Dominguez III last Nov. 2 ordered National Treasurer Roberto B. Tan as well as Finance Undersecretary Bayani Agabin and Assistant Secretary Mark Dennis Joven to conduct an investigation on the agency as well as its head, Commissioner Emmanuel F. Dooc.

The investigation stemmed from an open letter addressed to President Duterte wherein Steel Corp. of the Philippines (SCP) chair and chief executive Abeto Uy “accused the Insurance Commission of inaction on the successive letters that the steel company sent to the [agency] over a span of almost eight years complaining about the alleged failure of nine of its 10 insurance companies to settle the separate claims for material damages and business interruption losses that SCP had sought from these insurers following the fires that struck the company’s cold rolling mill plant in Balayan, Batangas, in 2008 and again in 2009,” the DOF said.

Dominguez ordered the three DOF officials to submit on Nov. 15 a preliminary report on their investigation.

In his letter to the President, Uy said it was “doubtful if the Insurance Commission indeed is there to protect the insuring public, or in actuality protects the interest of the insurance companies,” further alleging that since Dooc was a former executive of an insurance firm, it was “also doubtful if the present Insurance Commissioner is fit to hold the position as he might be biased in favor of insurance companies he is very familiar and friendly with.”

In a letter to the editor published in the Inquirer last Nov. 8, Dooc did not delve into the details and merits of the cases cited in SCP’s open letter, which he noted were pending in the Court of Appeals, but clarified that since these were administrative cases, the Insurance Commission’s jurisdiction “involves only the determination of the issue of whether or not insurance companies are guilty of unfair claim settlement and punishable with suspension or license revocation.”