A New Zealand-based general insurer that was banned last week by the UK Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has been linked to activities including international fraud scams and money-laundering.

UK brokers have been ordered to stop selling home insurance policies from a company called Pacific Blu, which is not registered to operate as an insurer inside or outside New Zealand.

insuranceNEWS.com.au enquiries have established that Pacific Blu, which has been selling a product into the UK market called My Home, is linked to businesses suspected of involvement in international crime, including money-laundering.

The FCA has told brokers that New Zealand regulatory bodies have confirmed Pacific Blu is neither licensed to sell insurance nor registered as a financial services company.

It was registered in Auckland as a limited partnership on January 24 but is not listed on the New Zealand Financial Service Providers Register or the list of licensed insurers.

insuranceNEWS.com.au has established that the partnership was set up by a company registered in Panama. The Auckland law firm whose address is on the registration has been accused previously of being linked to international fraud scams.

Companies can be set up in New Zealand online for less than $NZ200 ($227), with documentation issued in as little as 60 minutes. The signature on the registration form for Pacific Blu is indecipherable and no other information is supplied beyond an office address in Panama for a company suspected of being linked to international criminal activities and the address of the Auckland law firm.

New Zealand Financial Services Complaints Limited has confirmed that Pacific Blu is not a participant in its dispute resolution scheme, despite the company’s website saying its application to join a dispute resolution scheme is pending. The website adds: “There is no dispute resolution scheme presently available.”

Pacific Blu also says it “undertakes to follow the Fair Insurance Code”, but the Insurance Council of New Zealand has written to the company demanding it remove any reference to the code. Council CEO Tim Grafton says Pacific Blu is not a member of the council and its customers “do not have recourse to the code”.

The FCA says the company’s My Home policy has already been sold to consumers in the UK through one broker, and “it is possible that this policy or others offered by Pacific Blu are also being sold through other general insurance firms in the UK”.

“We are concerned that consumers who have taken out policies with Pacific Blu may be unaware that they have entered into an unregulated insurance contract under which there appears to be no regulatory protection.”

The World Bank said last year that New Zealand is “the easiest place in the world to set up a business”. Sources say the country’s company registration process has been used over the past few years to run a series of massive money-laundering schemes reaching into eastern Europe.

Last year New Zealand was removed from a European Union banking and corporate “whitelist” for having insufficient legislative safeguards against money-laundering and terrorist financing.  Russia was removed from the list at the same time.