22 November 2013

CRE: Insurers warn against rushed global capital standard

Participants at a conference organised by FFSA, France's insurance association, voiced concerns that the possible creation of a global capital standard for insurers could conflict with Solvency II and create extra costs and red tape.

Speaking at the event in Paris, Darryl D Button, CFO at AEGON, said he fears that the process of discussing and implementing new global capital requirements will begin even before Solvency II kicks in. Testing of the eventual IAIS global rules will cause further strain on already scarce resources, he warned.

"It is important that we make sure that the global system will be absolutely consistent with Solvency II", said Henri De Castries, Chairman and CEO at AXA. "The last thing we want is an industry that is taken hostage by different constituencies in terms of regulation that pursues different goals with different standards."

He also warned against the risk of rushing towards the implementation of a global standard. Mr De Castries noted that it took two decades for the banking industry to agree on the Basel set of global rules, which are already in their third version.

Gabriel Bernardino, Chairman of EIOPA, urged European stakeholders to press for a global standard, adding that global rules are unlikely to be as comprehensive and detailed as Solvency II. The head of Europe's insurance supervisory body also stressed that EIOPA will still have a vital role to play in Solvency II, even though some of its conclusions and desires have been watered down in the political agreement reached between European authorities last week.

Conference participants celebrated the agreement on Solvency II but urged policy-makers to clarify certain aspects, such as equivalence, promptly. Mr Button said that the industry still does not know which countries will be deemed equivalent, nor when they will likely be confirmed as so. This creates challenges for insurance companies that have units operating outside the European Economic Area, he pointed out.

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