Review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010

• Amending the principles of IPSA to:
  • incorporate a proportionate approach to regulation and supervision, including a proportionality framework for standards issued under IPSA, and
  • consider international regulatory practice.
• Adjusting the regulatory scope of IPSA to provide clarity around which entities are in and out of scope of prudential regulation and supervision and to better align with international best practice.
• Empowering the Reserve Bank to issue a wider range of ‘standards’ (a form of secondary legislation) to allow the Reserve Bank to clarify its obligations on insurers and allow it to sanction insurers in the event of non-compliance.
• Adjusting the current fit and proper regime that applies to directors and senior officers of insurers to ensure there is better engagement with the Reserve Bank on insurers’ choice of appropriate senior officers and to better align with prudential best practice.
• Simplifying the regulatory approvals regime in relation to significant transactions involving the sale and purchase of insurance business.
• Introducing a broader range of supervisory tools for the Reserve Bank to better support the monitoring and assessment of the financial health of insurers and their compliance with prudential requirements and to better align with prudential best practice.
• Introducing additional enforcement powers to allow the Reserve Bank to respond more proportionately to varying degrees of non-compliance.
• Updating the current distress management provisions to modernise the Reserve Bank’s powers to deal with insurers in financial difficulty.
• Some additional minor technical amendments to improve IPSA.

We launched an omnibus consultation, which sets out a full set of proposals for amending IPSA.

This consultation explored possible changes to:

• Purposes, scope and regulatory boundaries
• ‘Overseas’ insurers – branches and subsidiaries
• Solvency and ladder of intervention
• Policyholder security and statutory funds
• Governance, risk management and relevant officers
• Disclosure and reporting requirements
• Supervisory powers and approval processes
• Enforcement and penalties
• Distress management

As a result, we published a summary of submissions received and detailed public submissions.

IPSA Omnibus consultation submissions (PDF, 15MB)

IPSA Omnibus consultation summary of submissions (PDF, 294KB)

IPSA Omnibus consultation paper (PDF, 951KB)

IPSA Omnibus consultation non-technical summary (PDF, 318KB)

Webinar: IPSA and Solvency Standard Reviews presentation (PDF, 666KB)

IPSA Omnibus discussion - webinar questions and answers (PDF, 102KB)

We launched a consultation seeking feedback on insurance governance and supervisory processes. This consultation was the last of 4 topic-specific consultations as part of our review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 (IPSA).

This consultation explored:

• governance and risk management for insurers
• accountability for directors
• appointed actuaries and other key officers
• supervisory oversight of major restructuring transactions, and
• provisions for data gathering and information disclosure to support our insurance supervision.

Subsequently, we published a summary of submissions received and detailed public submissions.

IPSA Governance, Supervisory Processes and Disclosure Consultation Paper (PDF, 975KB)

IPSA Governance, Supervisory Processes and Disclosure Non-Technical Summary (PDF, 713KB)

IPSA Governance, Supervisory Processes and Disclosure Summary of Submissions (PDF, 412KB)

IPSA Governance, Supervisory Processes and Disclosure Full Submissions (PDF, 4MB)

We launched a consultation seeking feedback on the penalties and enforcement tools available when supervising insurers and our powers to manage distressed insurers.

We subsequently published our feedback to responses received and detailed public submissions.

IPSA Options Paper 3: Enforcement and Distress Management Consultation Paper (PDF, 965KB)

IPSA Options Paper 3: Enforcement and Distress Management non-technical summary (PDF, 680KB)

IPSA Enforcement and Distress Management feedback statement (PDF, 820KB)

IPSA Enforcement and Distress Management feedback full submissions (PDF, 3MB)

We sought feedback on issues relating to insurers’ financial strength disclosures, solvency requirements, termination values, statutory funds and a policyholder guarantee scheme.

We subsequently published our feedback to responses received and detailed public submissions. 

Read the non-technical summary

Policyholder Security consultation paper (PDF, 1MB)

IPSA Policyholder Security feedback statement (PDF, 782KB)

IPSA Policyholder Security full submissions (PDF, 8MB)

We sought feedback on issues relating to the scope of IPSA (for example, the definitions of insurance and carrying on business).  We also sought feedback on handling overseas insurers and their New Zealand branches.

We subsequently published our feedback to responses received and detailed public submissions.

Insurance Policy Review: Insurance Prudential Supervision Act (PDF, 1MB)

IPSA Review feedback statement - Scope of Act and Overseas Insurers (PDF, 843KB)

IPSA consultation on Scope of Act and Overseas Insurers submissions (PDF, 9MB)

We restarted the review by releasing a paper outlining our anticipated review timeline.

IPSA Review relaunch paper (PDF, 600KB)

We launched the review with an issues paper outlining:

• the rationale for the review
• the terms of reference
• the intended process for the review
• a range of potential issues we had identified that could be taken forward under the review.

We subsequently published a feedback statement.

Issues Paper: Review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010 (PDF, 1MB)

Review of the Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Act 2010: Issues Paper Consultation Feedback Statement (PDF, 469KB)

We released the terms of reference for a review of IPSA.

IPSA Terms of Reference (PDF, 98KB)