The sale of Australia's last state-owned insurance company is being driven by the Northern Territory government, its chief executive suggests.
The Territory Insurance Office (TIO) operates commercially but is guaranteed by the government, considered vital in a region prone to extreme weather and natural disasters.
Although the government says it is not pushing a sale, but responding to TIO's call for help to deal with liquidity issues, TIO's CEO Richard Harding told a community forum on Thursday night that may not be the case.
"My job is to ensure the best outcome for our shareholder, and if the shareholder has made that decision (to sell), we support it and drive it forward for them," he said.
The board of TIO opposed a sale in 2006 when the then-Labor government put it forward, but supports it now after several years of growth.
When asked by AAP to clarify Mr Harding's comments that the NT government is engineering the TIO sale, spokesman Nicholas Meseldzija said in a statement that "TIO began this conversation with government".
Earlier on Thursday, Chief Minister Adam Giles released a discussion paper for a potential new infrastructure development fund that would use a proportion of revenue from any public asset sales to be reinvested.
It appears to be a move to ease the public into the idea of a sale in advance of a Cabinet meeting on Tuesday that will consider final offers.
If the government decides to sell it will do so quickly because of "liquidity issues" with the insurer, Mr Giles said.
That means it will suspend standing orders during the November sittings to introduce and pass the legislation in three days, circumventing the standard four-week public consultation period.
The Labor opposition, Palmer United Party members and the Independent oppose the sale along with the NT Chamber of Commerce and numerous small business owners, fearing it will cause premiums to skyrocket.
TIO's premiums would rise regardless, Mr Harding said, because its flood pricing is unsustainable.
The cost of buying reinsurance from multinationals to balance the risk it takes in a cyclone and flood-prone area had increased substantially since the 2011 Queensland floods, he said.
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