Although insurance companies have always based their management decisions on information about exposures, risks and customers, the entry into force of Solvency II in 2016 represented a key incentive to progress from informal data quality [...]
Economic Capital Models (“ECMs”) are a hot topic of discussion within the insurance industry: what is the target level of confidence?
At the heart of the issue is the complexity of the way deferred tax items are recognized, coupled with all the complexities of a market consistent valuation regime. This combined complexity and uncertainty manifests itself in a conservative assessment of the value of tax and the role it plays in a valuation system.
Solvency 2 represents a step change in the prudential regulation of insurance that promotes the best practice standards of risk management advocated by the CRO Forum. The challenge of implementing a harmonised and risk-based economic approach across the EU should not be underestimated.
The role of ‘expected future profits’ in determining a firm’s own funds is attracting much discussion, with suggestions that they should be excluded from tier 1 capital. We believe this is at least in part due to a misunderstanding of their nature – even the term ‘expected future profits’ is misleading and we prefer to refer to them as in-force cashflows.
In addition to its commitment to the Solvency II project, the CRO Forum maintains its focus on the promotion of best risk management practices by unraveling potential threats to the industry.
This document is a follow-up to our position paper published last May: ‘Calibration Principles for the Solvency II Standard Formula”. The paper provides our recommendation on the methodology to calibrate market risk correlation factors as well as a counterproposal for the correlation matrix as suggested by CEIOPS in its Consultation Paper n°74. The final chapter of this document also briefly addresses the correlations for non-market risk.
Under Solvency II, (re)insurance companies have the option to elect the Standard Model as defined under Solvency II or apply for approval to use Internal Models. Regulatory authorities have spent a lot of time and attention on the admissibility requirements for granting Internal Model approval.
The Forum strongly believes the directive represents an important step toward implementing an advanced supervisory and solvency framework which will help strengthen the European insurance industry. The Forum now urges the European Commission to introduce clear and effective implementing measures that will deliver the directive's basic principles.
The Solvency II standard formula to calculate a company's Solvency Capital Requirement should present a balancing act between various targets such as simplicity, risk sensitivity and robustness. The CRO Forum believes the main principles of the current standard formula, namely to asses the sensitivity with respect to all material risk factors and to aggregate capital requirements allowing for diversification, are appropriate for this purpose and moreover set incentives towards risk mitigation strategies.
