State receives €20m from dormant policies

Insurance firms have transferred more than €20 million from dormant life assurance policies to the State to be used for charitable and social purposes.

Following a late surge among customers seeking to claim their old policies, the total amount left in dormant policies dropped from an estimated €60 million to just over €20 million. The money comes from a range of life assurance policies which have not been claimed for between five and 15 years, depending on the nature of the policy.

Insurance industry officials say some of the policies now in the hands of the State since last week date back to the 1900s and late 1800s.

Over the past year, insurance firms have been required to attempt to make contact with holders of unclaimed policies to inform them of the new initiative.

However, they were not required to write to customers where the value of the policy was less than €500.

Despite last week's deadline for insurance firms to pass on dormant policy funds to the State, policyholders or their beneficiaries will still be able to come forward at any time and reclaim the full amount they are entitled to.

The money has been transferred to National Treasury Management Agency (NTMA), which will manage the money until it is used by the Government for a range of social projects.

However, the process of dispersing funds has been hit by controversy in recent months after the Government was accused of trying to take control of the funds from an independent dormant accounts board set up to distribute the money.

NTMA officials said by Friday afternoon around €22.4 million had been transferred from insurance firms, far less than what was expected following industry estimates earlier this year of between €45 and €60 million.

The Insurance Industry Federation (IIF), however, said the figures showed efforts to reunite customers with their policies were successful.

"The overall total has come down significantly from where we thought it was in January. Customers will leave things to the last minute. There was a large influx of customers making contact regarding their policies before the deadline," said Ms Jennifer Hoban, IIF's life assurance manager.

"One of the key purposes of this was to put people back in contact with money they had forgotten about. So from that perspective, it's been a success."

Separate to the life assurance funds scheme, NTMA officials said they were surprised by a recent windfall from banks relating to dormant bank accounts in recent days.

While around €175 million from dormant bank accounts was transferred from banks to the State last year, the look-back process is an annual one and another €32.1 million was transferred in recent weeks.

Around half of this money has been sourced from accounts held with An Post.