DUBLIN, Ohio ASI Inc., the only surviving private insurer of credit union deposits, announced this afternoon a Special Premium Assessment for 2013 of 7.5 basis points.
Including this year’s assessment, since 2009 ASI, formally American Share Insurance, has assessed its credit unions a total of 61.5 bps.
ASI notes that compares to 83.32 bps NCUA has assessed federally insured credit unions for the corporate bailout and NCUSIF premiums since then.
ASI, which provides primary insurance (up to $250,000 per account) for 120 state chartered credit unions, said this year’s special assessment will boost its equity ratio (dollars reserved per $100 of insured deposits) to 1.59%. The equity ratio for the National CU Share Insurance Fund is around 1.32%.
The ASI premium will be assessed of all primary insured credit unions of record with ASI as of September 30.
The assessment does not apply to federally insured credit unions with excess share insurance underwritten (deposits over $250,000) by ASI or its wholly-owned subsidiary, Excess Share Insurance Corp.
“Although we are seeing signs of an end to the recession, we still find ourselves facing low yields on our high-quality bond portfolio. In addition, we remain committed to sufficiently funding our loss reserves at a slowing, but not yet normal, rate this year,” said Dennis Adams, president of the private insurer.
ASI has also been hurt by more than $26 million of financial assistance its has provided to deeply troubled Silver State Schools CU in Las Vegas.
The company is the sole survivor of a one-time network of two-dozen private deposit insurance funds for credit unions. The others were all wound down after the 1990 crisis at the Rhode Island Share and Deposit Indemnity Corp., known as RISDIC, which caused a bank holiday and the failure of 29 RISDIC-insured credit unions in the state.
