Cautions and notices

Dec 2020 Insurance

In December the Reserve Bank issued formal directions to Pacific International Insurance Pty Limited following repeated failings with its New Zealand regulatory reporting and compliance obligations.

The directions were made under section 143 of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010. Section 143 gives the Reserve Bank the ability to direct a licensed insurer to carry on its business in a specified way and/or take certain specified actions to address regulatory failures. This action follows warnings issued to Pacific International in 2018 for failing to include its solvency ratio in its New Zealand branch financial statements for three consecutive years.

Nov 2020 Insurance

Solvency principles:

We would like to thank those who made submissions on the principles underlying the Solvency Standards Review. The input we have received is valuable and is under consideration. We will produce a feedback statement in due course.

New consultations:

The Reserve Bank has released four documents relating to insurance policy:

• a consultation paper about the structure of our solvency standards and our approach to IFRS 17;
• a consultation paper about the scope of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 and the regulatory regime for overseas insurers; and
• non-technical summaries of both consultation papers

These documents can be found on the Solvency Standard Review and IPSA Review pages respectively.

Feedback is invited on the two consultation papers. A webinar will be held to discuss them at 10am on Monday December 14. Please email rbnz-info@rbnz.govt.nz to register for the webinar and/or to raise questions for discussion at the webinar.

Nov 2020 Insurance

The Reserve Bank has published a further review on how licensed insurers assess their exposure to catastrophe risk. This follows on from a similar review completed in 2016. Insurers were asked to provide information on their catastrophe risks in respect of governance, processes for assessment of risks, any modelling undertaken, the controls to limit exposures, and mitigation to reduce the effects of catastrophes. This has allowed us to better understand how insurers are prudently managing their catastrophe exposures, and to monitor changes since the 2016 survey.

Download the 2020 Insurer catastrophe risk survey report (PDF 550KB)

Nov 2020 Banks

The Reserve Bank launched a consultation on the details for implementing the final Capital Review decisions announced in December 2019.

View the Media release: Reserve Bank launches consultation to implement Capital Review changes.

Nov 2020 Banks

The Reserve Bank has published a regulatory update announcement covering four areas:

• Capital Review Implementation Timing
• Capital Review Implementation Consultation
• Loan-to-Value Ratio Restrictions
• Dividend Restrictions

View the Media release: Further regulatory steps to promote cashflow confidence and stability.