Collapse
With $7.8 billion in assets, HIH was considered one of Australia's largest insurance firms. However after offsetting its assets with debts and potential insurance claims against the company, HIH was left, on paper, with net assets of only $133 million. McGrath & Riddell described HIH's solvency as "marginal" and stated in their report that "an extremely small movement (just 1.7%) in the value of assets could move the balance sheet into net asset deficiency." That is, even the slightest setback would cause the company to become insolvent.
In 2001, the board appointed a provisional liquidator to take control of HIH and 17 of its controlled entities. The board hoped this would give HIH time to review its operations and assess its financial position. On the same day, HIH was to announce its first-half result for the six months to 31 December 2000. The announcement had already been delayed once and rumours suggested that HIH's first-half result was a loss of $100 million. This figure quickly ballooned to $200 million, and then $300 million. Although the result was never announced, when McGrath announced his appointment as provisional liquidator he estimated that HIH had lost over $800 million over the six months to 31 December 2000. He attributed the HIH company failures to rapid expansion, unsupervised delegation of authority, extensive and complex reinsurance arrangements, under pricing, reserve problems, false reports, reckless management, incompetence, fraud, greed, and self–dealing.
HIH insurance is currently in run–off, which means it is managing its outstanding claims and not writing any new business. This process could take several years to complete; some have suggested as long as 10 years.
The demise of HIH was the largest corporate failure in Australia's history. HIH liquidators estimated that the company collapsed with losses totalling up to $5.3 billion.
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