From very early in the morning insurance agency employees left without a job started demonstrating and blocked Kifisias Boulevard for hours and caused enormous traffic. The peak of the protests was at noon, when the affected employees gathered in front of the building of the Greek Ministry of National Economy.
The decision to close five insurance companies was taken yesterday and today liquidators accompanied by the police, entered their offices. Four of the companies belong to the Aspis Group and the fifth one is Skourtis. The Aspis companies are Aspis Pronia AEGA, Aspis Pronia Zois, Geniki Enosi, and Geniki Pisti. Few months ago they entered the eye-shot of the Supervision Commission of Private Insurances due to their weak financial condition. The last drop that spilled the glass was a week ago when one of the owners Pavlos Psomiadis showed a fake bank guarantee to the commission.
All five firm are mainly working in the automobile insurance sector and their clients are more than 1 million and 200 Greeks. The state will guarantee for the insured for one month but after that people will have to insure themselves in other companies. Together, the five liquidated companies hold 8% of the insurance market in Greece. The Insurance Agencies Association in Greece, which had a meeting today, took the responsibility to ensure jobs of as many employees of the five companies, as possible.
The shutdown of the five insurance companies caused a lot of reaction from the Greek public, which will have to vote for a new government in 10 days. The oppositional party PASOK accused the actions of the current government against those companies as “criminal inaction”. Aspis business group announced it will seek for its rights in the court. Representatives of the protesters met today with minister of national economy Yannis Papatanasiou, who will meet the Insurance Agencies Association tomorrow and after that give a press conference.
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