At least 20 Credit Unions in Ireland have  “serious solvency issues”  according to the Central Bank’s financial institutions supervisor Jonathan McMahon. These 20 have high levels of arrears, and they are being monitored closely.  The problems could be more widespread – but the regulator does  not have the resources to determine the full scale of problems across all 414 credit unions in Ireland.

Credit Unions were only bought into the government deposit guarantee  scheme in September 2008 – so all credit union deposits up to €100k are covered under that scheme.

Overall – about 13.5 %  of  credit union loans  had not been repaid for 10 weeks or longer, compared with 6% two years ago. Many loans  have also been rescheduled to give struggling borrowers more time to repay.

The regulator found that that as many as 90% of credit unions had not provided sufficiently on provisions for bad loans, he said.

A proposal under Section 35 in the new Central Bank Bill would force credit unions to set aside more funds to cover possible losses on rescheduled loans – up to 20 per cent of a loan’s value.

It is  expected that many problems, including loan arrears will to crystallise at credit unions by the end of their financial year in September.

The Government have announced plans to sell off the Irish Health Insurance company VHI.
It always seemed strange that the goverment was responsible for providing “free”  public healthcare and also running a private health insurance company  as well as regulating the health insurance market.

VHI – which is Ireland’s biggest  health insurer in terms of people insured. will be privatised and probably broken up in the process.
VHI insures a bigger proportion of older people than Quinn Healthcare or Aviva. Older people tend to get sick more often than younger people – so VHI are less profitable as a result.

The Government want to introduce risk equalisation – which will mean that  companies with larger numbers of older subscribers would receive financial payments, via the regulator, from their rivals with a younger membership profile.

They tried to intoduce legislation previously – but the other insurance companies protested about having to hand over €20 – €30 million  to the VHI .
BUPA challenged it in the Supreme Court and the government lost . BUPA have since pulled out of Ireland and Quinn Insurance took over their operations.

Mmany of the legal challenges  to   risk equalisation scheme centred on the argument that making commercial companies pay sums of money to a State-owned enterprise (VHI)  represented a form of State aid.

So – one way around this is to privatise VHI.  We wrote earlier this year about the problem of VHI Solvency – and avoidance of regulation which still have to be addressed.

Before selling off the VHI – the government will have to boost it’s reserves sheet by a “substantial” sum -  probably  in excess of €100 million.

Quinn Insurance has had well publicised solvency problems too – and is  in administration – ( it will probably be sold  too).

Aviva seems to be the only sound insurer in the health market in Ireland at the moment.

Irish Nationwide increased the interest rate on their variable mortgages this week.
The rate has risen from  2.74% to to 3.21% – a rise of  0.45%.
This week also saw KBC reduce it’s 3 and 5 year fixed rate mortgages .
See the updated  list of best buy mortgages on the right .

Many air passengers from Ireland and other countries had flights cancelled because of the recent volcanic ash cloud from Iceland.  Some travel insurance companies paid out for cancelled accommodation bookings and other costs incurred as a result of flight cancellations. Some insurance companies paid out as an act of goodwill – even though they strictly didn’t have to.
In Britain – the British Insurance Brokers Association estimates that around half of insurance companies decided to pay out on travel and accommodation costs under  “adverse weather” clauses.
Many  travel insurance policies specificlly exclude pay-outs when flights are cancelled on the instructions of the local aviation authority – which is what happened with the ash cloud.

The Icelandic volcano eruption appears to have calmed down just now – but it could start up again at any time. Summer holidays this year may well be disrupted by volcanic ash.
It is very unlikely that any new travel insurance policies taken out since the eruption began will pay out on claims caused by the ash cloud.  This means that even insurance companies that  paid out to travellers affected by April’s  disruptions won’t do the same for people who have bought a policy since the first eruption.
Holidaymakers who have booked a package holiday can appeal to their tour operator or travel agency in the event of disruption. If their flight is cancelled they will be offered an alternative holiday, or if the alternative is a significant change (generally a change of more than 12 hours on a 14-night holiday is considered to be a significant change) then the customer must also be offered the choice of a refund on the full holiday cost.
For the do-it-yourself holidaymakers Paddy Power is offering an alternative  form of  “insurance” against cancelled holidays due to volcanic ash. Volcanic Betting :You can place bets on certain airports having an unscheduled closure (no flights allowed to land or depart) for at least one hour on a specific date.

Volcanic Betting - example -. Your holiday accommodation costs €2000. The odds of your departure airport being closed for more than an hour due to volcanic ash on your departure date is 25 to 1. If  you bet €80 -  you will get €2080 back if ash causes  closure.
It’s seems like a  good idea – and in the absence of any other form of volcanic ash travel insurance – it could be a bet that will put some people’s minds at rest.

The airports available for the Volcanic Betting are currently limited to Belfast, Dublin, Cork, Shannon, Heathrow, Manchester, Glasgow, Stansted, Gatwick, Birmingham, Barcelona El Prat, Madrid Barajas.

Visit this page for a  Comparison of Travel Insurance in Ireland

Dell Ireland have some new discount voucher codes.
You can get 5% off all Dell Studio, Dell Inspiron  and Dell XPS orders when you spend more than €749.

The voucher code is valid from  Thursday, May 20th 2010 until  Wednesday May 26th 2010.

*Voucher Code – 019246?RC?CTV8 Vist Dell Ireland to see the bargain.

See Current Dell Discount Codes here

Airtricity – who are already in competition with ESB for Electricity supply – have started accepting customers for GAS .
You can see the various energy suppliers prices here :
Electricity Prices ::     Gas Prices

You can only get gas from Airtricity if you get electricity from them too. Airtricity prices for gas are about 10% lower than  Bord Gais  – but they are only slightly lower than Flogas.
Flogas have been supplying natural gas nationwide for a while now and prices are about 8% less than Bord Gais.  Up to now – the cheapest option for a dual fuel customer has been to use Airtricity for Electricity and use Flogas for Gas. It now looks like the cheapest option is to go with Airtricity for both.

Oasis – the ladies online clothes store – have a 20% discount code that is valid from today (12th May) until Sunday May 16th.
Visit OASIS and use the code SHOPSS2010  to get 20% off every order.
Delivery to Ireland is €5

OASIS Clothes

The Apple iPad was launched in the USA in April and will be available in the UK  Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spainand Switzerland  on Friday, May 28th. (Pre order online from May 10th).

For people living in Ireland – the iPad won’t be available until July 2010 – along with Austria, Belgium, Hong Kong,  Luxembourg, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand and Singapore.