By VERNON CLEMENT JONES, Guardian Business Editor

Implementation of the new insurance act is likely being held up by the formation of a new governing body to oversee and police it, given comments from the minister responsible.

"I don't have definitive time (for when it will be implemented)," Minister of State for Finance Zhivargo Laing told Guardian Business Monday, "Our challenge was all the administration pieces have to be in place when we establish the commission.

"We want to make sure we have the provisions in place before the act comes into force.

It was last January, he announced the government had won the rubber stamp of industry players to bring into effect legislation, in fact, passed into law back in 2005.

The groundbreaking legislation was then heralded as the way of increasing the transparency and accountability of an insurance sector collecting some $500 million in premiums annually.

Arguably, at its cornerstone is the introduction of an insurance commission to replace the existing insurance registry. That newly-invigorated regulator would have more power to censure insurers in breach of regulations and create for itself a more arms-length relationship with government.

That single change, alone, would allow the registry to act more like a true regulator, particularly in its ability to punish those who contravene the act without seeking Ministry approval.

Under the current, operating act, it now falls to Laing to kick off that censuring process.

As it is now the registrar is largely viewed as a paper tiger, with only the power to gather information and make recommendations. Having then to defer to the minister, slows its response to consumer complaints.

Laing asserts the administration has spent the last several months laying the groundwork for creation of that commission.

An end to that process is less clear.

"I can't honestly put a date (on when the Act will be implemented)," he said. "I anticipate that this is possible (for it to be issued by the end of the year)."

Oddly enough, winning industry approval was primarily viewed as the largest of the hurdles standing in the way of implementation.

Requirements that insurance agencies, largely representing one insurer, would be forced to remove "broker" from their billing in order to better represent their true nature was just one of the stumbling blocks that the industry nonetheless signed off on.

"The new legislation is permitting all sectors of the industry a grace period of one year to comply with their respective license category requirements," Pauline Sherman, the country's deputy registrar of Insurance, told Guardian Business, last January. "They will be obliged, so if they are not doing brokerage business then they won't be having that in their name.

"The business they do engage in will be disclosed to and for the benefit of the public."

Consumer advocates have lobbied for the changes as a way of appraising that same public about what insurance company — if any — their representatives are acting for.

Despite that and the commission's broader powers, the industry appears now ready to comply with the legislation.

"The regulations were approved," said Laing. "They (the industry) is not opposed."

Those regulations were to have been tabled in the House of Assembly during the last session, suggesting responsibility for any hold-up rest outside the industry.