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 [...]
Towers Watson published a paper on the matching adjustment and the implications for long-term savings with financial support from the CRO Forum.
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.
The Emerging Risks Initiative releases today three papers on risks emerging in the insurance industry, namely: Environmental liabilities & biodiversity losses; Carbon nano tubes (CNT); and Workplace related stress. The papers identify elements of the changing risk landscape that may create new challenges for stakeholders such as public authorities as well as financial institutions like insurance providers.
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.
