LONDON--The cost of insuring Greek, Portuguese and Irish debt against default hit new, record highs Wednesday amid the lack of official consensus about what to do with Greece's debt.

At around 1000 GMT, Greece's five-year CDS spread was 1.11 percentage points wider at 17 percentage points, wider from an earlier level of 16.51 percentage points, according to data-provider Markit.

This means it now costs an average of $1,700,000 a year to insure $10 million of debt issued by the country. CDS are derivatives that function like a default insurance contract for debt. If a borrower defaults, sellers compensate buyers.

Portugal's and Ireland's five-year CDS spreads also kept climbing to fresh records. Portugal's spread was 0.31 percentage point wider at 7.8 percentage points from 7.7 percentage points earlier, while Ireland's was 0.14 percentage point wider at 7.45 percentage points. Spain was 0.1 percentage points wider at 2.83.

A rise of one basis point in the cost of five-year CDS equates to a $1,000 increase in the annual cost of protecting $10 million of debt for five years.