Cash-strapped insurance giant CLICO will this morning open a new agency to handle business from three top performing offices it closed last Friday.

CLICO, the country’s largest insurer, will launch its CL Agency at the company’s St Vincent St, Port of Spain head office, as it continues to reshape itself to recover from a multi-billion dollar statutory fund deficit.

Almost 70 agents attached to CLICO’s Valpark, St Clair and St James branches resigned with immediate effect on Monday, after they were locked out their offices without warning.

They said they had put up with six months of abuse from customers who wanted their matured investments repaid and had little support from CLICO.

In a brief published statement yesterday, CLICO said the ceremony to open the CL Agency today would ’re-affirm Colonial Life’s commitment to its clients and provide another avenue for the public to interact with our financial advisers and courteous staff’.

The new agency will also monitor and streamline CLICO’s vast insurance and investment products, sources told the Express yesterday.

Last week, Central Bank Governor, Ewart Williams, and CLICO’s managing director, Claude Musaib-Ali, said CLICO’s restructuring will be characterised by ’corporate restructuring and the introduction of a new business model’.