Three insurance company directors, including one from Sussex, "lied" about their ailing company's health to protect their reputations, jobs and telephone-number salaries, a court heard.

They knew that if the truth came out, Independent Insurance - the "peak" of their professional lives - could go under, it was claimed.

But London's Southwark Crown Court was told that despite their alleged cover-up, the company eventually crashed six years ago in one of Britain's "worst commercial disasters".

In the dock are Dennis Lomas, 56, the company's onetime finance chief, of Balcombe Road, Haywards Heath, former chief executive Michael Bright, 62, of Biddington Road, Smarden, Kent and its then managing director Philip Condon, 58, of Ashley Road, Sevenoaks.

Each deny two counts of conspiracy to defraud between January 1 1997 and June 17 2001.

The first alleges they withheld claims data from actuaries, while the second accuses them of making incomplete disclosures regarding agreements with the company's re-insurers.

The men also pleaded not guilty to alternative charges of fraudulent trading.

Just a year before it went under the company was valued at £1 billion. However, some reinsurance contracts were unfavourable and could have had a "dramatic" downward effect on the company's worth.

Andrew Baillie, QC, prosecuting, alleged it was because all of those in the dock knew the company's "real situation" that they told "sustained and deliberate lies".