Regulation of insurance sector

Jul 2021 Insurance

Solvency

We are publishing three documents relating to the Review of the Insurance Solvency Standards:

• A feedback statement from the consultation run over summer;
• A draft of an Interim Solvency Standard, for consultation; and
• An explanatory note.

These documents can be found on the Solvency Standard Review page.

We’ll be holding a webinar to discuss the draft interim standard at 10am on Thursday 5 August. To express your interest in attending the webinar, please subscribe to our mailing list. An invite will be sent to our Insurance mailing list closer to the date.

IPSA

We are also publishing an IPSA Review feedback statement; this relates to the recent consultation on the Scope of the Act and the treatment of overseas insurers. This document can be found on the IPSA Review page.

Mar 2021 Insurance

We have today released a feedback statement (PDF 700KB) on the consultation relating to Solvency Standard Review principles. We thank those who provided submissions. We are working through submissions received for the consultation on the structure of the solvency standards and our approach to IFRS 17.

Jan 2021 Insurance

In November the Reserve Bank published a consultation paper on the scope of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 and the regime for regulating overseas insurers. The paper anticipated that the last date we would receive submissions would be Thursday 18 February 2021. This has now been extended for an extra month with the last date for submissions now Friday 19 March 2021. Note that there is no change to the final date for submissions on the solvency consultation paper on IFRS 17 and the structure of the solvency standards – this remains Thursday 18 February 2021.

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 [email protected] to register for the webinar and/or to raise questions for discussion at the webinar.