Abstract An example is given to show that there exist fixed sample size designs for any sample size greater than two, for which the Yates-Grundy estimator is inadmissible in the class of nonnegative unbiased quadratic estimators of the variance of the Horvitz-Thompson estimator. A necessary condition for the Horvitz-Thompson variance estimator to be nonnegative definite is pointed out. It is also pointed out that a posterior lower bound can be obtained for any nonnegative definite quadratic function of a finite population. An example is given to show that the Yates-Grundy estimator, even when it is nonnegative, can take values smaller than this bound.