The Swiss parent of Zurich Australian Insurance isn’t at all worried about the Australian Prudential Regulation Authority’s (APRA) review of past reinsurance arrangements.

Zurich Financial Services AG spokesman Daniel Hofmann says he doesn’t think the probe will have any consequences at group level. “If anything, our Australian unit may be forced to adjust its accounts retroactively,” he said.

That seems inevitable. But it might have been interesting to see just how laidback the parent would have been if the Australian operation’s financial reinsurance arrangements had been made public back in 2000, when Zurich – along with many other Europeans – was struggling.

Mr Hofmann told a Swiss newspaper the amount at stake is minimal.

The newspaper linked the resignation two weeks ago of Zurich’s Australia CEO John Butler with the APRA investigation into some of the group’s financial reinsurance deals in 2000. The local company’s PR team has worked hard to try to ensure local media don’t make that linkage.

Mr Butler was CFO at Zurich Australia from 1999 to 2001, his term in that job coinciding with the period in which the reinsurance deals were made. He became CEO in 2001.