Quinn Insurance lost a total of €706 million in 2009 it was revealed today, largely attributed to operating losses in its UK market.

A write-down in the value of assets also helped the company towards the 2009 loss. Although the joint administrators, Michael McAteer and Paul McCann, said losses in 2010 were stemmed, the company will record a loss in 2010 of €160 million, which it said mainly reflected UK business written immediately prior to their appointment.

“A combination of the 2009 and 2010 losses will result in the company having a shareholder fund deficit of €496 million as at December 31st 2010,” Mr McAteer said in a statement today.

The company will be sold to Anglo Irish Bank and Liberty Mutual, which were named joint preferred bidders earlier this month. The scale of its losses mean it will have to call on Insurance Compensation Fund later this year. This is likely to lead to a industry-wide levy being applied to non-life insurance customers.

The fund, which was used to cover losses at failed insurers PMPA and ICI in the 1980s, is worth some €30 million but the Government can impose a levy of up to 2 per cent on all general insurance policies, including motor and household, to cover losses at any company.

The Central Bank today said the need to access the ICF was not unexpected "in light of the serious and persistent solvency problems" at the firm.

"The Central Bank will carry out a review of the financial position of the fund in the coming weeks and will make a recommendation to the Minister for Finance regarding the funding that the Minister may provide to the fund based on the outcome of this review. Any levy imposed will apply to non-life insurance companies," it said.

The Quinn family said this evening they were "dismayed and saddened" at how the value of the company had been "utterly undermined" since administrators were appointed.

In a statement the family called on Government to make immediately public all documents relating to the work of the joint administrators and the involvement of Anglo with Liberty Mutual.

"If this does not happen then the cover-up of the erosion of value at the expense of the Irish taxpayer at Quinn Insurance will never be revealed," the family said.

"The Irish taxpayer needs a full explanation as to how we have arrived at this point considering that Quinn Insurance had over €1.1bn of liquid assets in addition to €464 million of property at the end of March 2010.

"The repeated statements of the joint administrators to the High Court and to the media that the company was profitable and there would be no call on the Insurance Compensation Fund now need to be reconciled with the results announced today," the statement said.

Anglo and Liberty is to take over the Irish business of Quinn Insurance but not the loss-making United Kingdom division, which is responsible for most of the company’s deficit for 2009.

Jobs at Quinn Insurance were said to be safe.

The restructuring of the Quinn Group earlier this month was an essential prerequisite to the sale of the insurer due to the existence of €464 million in guarantees within subsidiaries of the insurer to the group’s banks and bondholders.

The guarantees led the Financial Regulator to seek the appointment of administrators amid concerns over the insurer’s solvency.

Hundreds of people gathered at the Quinn headquarters in Fermanagh today to protest against new management at the firm. It is the second demonstration this week over Anglo’s decision to appoint an administrator to take control of the Quinn family shares.