The supervisory board appointed Katja Jelercic and Ivan Gracar new management board members, Vzajemna chief supervisor Mirko Miklavcic told the press after the session in Ljubljana.

According to Miklavcic, the reason for the dismissals is stubbornness regarding pay. The management members did not want to "coordinate the expected income and did not want to sign contracts offered by the supervisory board", he said.

Miklavcic added that Kolar, formerly a management board member, would receive the same monthly salary as Kidric - EUR 8,000, but that she would not receive a bonus for years of service.

Kidric signed his contract in October 2009 with the Insurance Supervision Agency, which then served as the supervisor of the company following the launch of proceedings against former Vzajemna management.

The supervisory board, which was appointed by Vzajemna shareholders in July 2010, did not agree with certain provisions of the contract and proposed another contract, Miklavcic explained.

The new chairman was picked from the existing management board because of the need for continuity, according to the chief supervisor, who added that Kolar was the best candidate.

Miklavcic believes that the new management is competent enough to pull Vzajemna in the right direction.

The decision comes after Monday's session at which the supervisors planned to dismiss Jarc and Kolar as management board members as they had failed to get to an agreement on the amount of their salaries.

Scheduled to be appointed as their replacements were Jelercic and Gracar, who last week received licences for the company's management from the Insurance Supervision Agency. Kidric's dismissal was also on the agenda.

The session was however suspended because of the warnings from the Insurance Supervision Agency that the supervisors are acting irrationally and irresponsibly both to the company and the management.

Kidric said before the decision that his dismissal would be completely unnecessary and irrational, as his term would have expired with the appointment of the new management, which is expected to take place in the coming months.

In today's response Kidric said however that the decision of the supervisory board was detrimental to the company, arguing that it was not good to change the management month and a half before the maiden session of the new general assembly, elected in June.

At the session, shareholders are expected to appoint a new supervisory board, which will in turn be tasked with appointing the new management.

Kidric is to stay at Vzajemna at least until a new supervisory board is constituted. He did not wish to answer the question on whether he would run for chairman again once the new supervisors were appointed.

Jarc meanwhile wondered how come that management board member Kolar was appointed chairman today when she had been insisting on the same payment conditions as him.

Vzajemna presented its projections for the first half of 2010 on Tuesday, saying that its loss before taxes is to stand at around EUR 2m, which is half of the planned loss.

In the first five months, the insurer generated EUR 109m in revenues, of which net revenues from premiums amounted to EUR 102m. The loss topped EUR 400,000.