Supervision of insurers

The Insurance Oversight team within the Prudential Supervision Department at the Reserve Bank is responsible for implementing the Bank’s oversight and supervision of insurers. The new prudential supervision framework recognises that the Bank has an important role to play in ensuring a well functioning insurance sector in New Zealand.

Supervising insurance firms will be underpinned by a supervision regime that:

• is consistent in its approach and philosophy to the Bank’s other prudential supervision activities;
• is (policy) outcomes focused;
• avoids imposing unnecessary compliance costs on insurers; and
• is risk based.

The Bank is producing the following guidelines for insurers to assist in understanding the Bank’s prudential requirements. Those not yet available will be available soon.

Guidelines for insurers

Please refer to Licensing for insurers for the list of guidelines produced by the Bank to assist licensed insurers in understanding the supervision requirements of the Act.

Insurance supervisory framework and compliance

Additional information on the insurance supervision framework and on compliance requirements will be added to this section as insurers progress with their licence applications and begin moving from the licensing phase into normal daily “business as usual” supervision.