News

Solvency II – QIS 5 Workshops

The Society of Actuaries in Ireland and the Financial Regulator are currently organising a series of workshops in September on QIS 5 (Qu

Submission to Financial Regulator on Investment Guarantees

The Financial Regulator published a consultation paper during the summer on “Investment Guarantees – Guidance on Reserving and Risk Governance”. 

CEIOPS and the Groupe Consultatif have assembled a programme for a hands‐on practical workshop on QIS5 to be held at the CEIOPS office in Frankfurt on 25th and 26th August.  The outline programme has been designed such that the first day should suffice for general insurance actuaries while the second day will address specialised life (with‐profits) issues.  Participants may register for each day separately.

The Groupe Consultatif has submitted comments on the draft QIS 5 technical specification to the European Commission.

The paper identifies a number of high-level issues:

The CEA, CRO Forum and CFO Forum have written to the European Commission to comment on the application of the illiquidity premium to liabilities in both the implementing measures for Solvency II and the fifth quantitative impact study (QIS 5). Welcoming the EC’s more granular approach to the application of the illiquidity premium, the paper sets out proposals for criteria to be tested in QIS 5.

Last month, the Financial Regulator issued a questionnaire to insurance undertakings that had expressed a wish to enter into the Solvency II internal model pre-application readiness assessment process.   

This month, the Financial Regulator held a number of workshops to discuss the questionnaire.

The Financial Regulator has now published a document that sets out the questionnaire together with the main questions raised in the workshops and the Financial Regulator's responses to these questions.

The Financial Regulator has published a consultation paper on Investment Guarantees - Guidance on Reserving and Risk Governance
 

In an address to a Financial Regulator Solvency II Insurance Forum this week, Jonathan McMahon, Assistant Director General, Financial Institutions Supervision, urged companies to allocate significant resources to the implementation of Pillar 2 (risk management and governance) and Pillar 3 (supervisor reporting and disclosure) of the Solvency II framework.  He commented that the implementation of Basel II (The Capital Requirements Directive) led banks and regulators to place too much importance on models and their outputs.  He stressed that, while high quality models are important,

At a public hearing on Solvency II in Brussels this month, Michel Barnier, Member of the European Commission responsible for the Internal Market and Services, urged insurers to give their opinions on the calibration of Solvency II by taking part in Quantitative Impact Study (QIS5).  He also proposed deferral of the implementation of the Directive:  “As very few insurers end their financial year on 31 October, I wish to propose deferring the date of entry into force of the Directive from 31 October 2012 to 31 December 2012 to bring it into line with the date on which the accounts o

The CEA, the European insurance and reinsurance federation, has called for more work to be done on the Solvency II implementing measures.  It has also called for changes to the draft specifications for the fifth Quantitative Impact Study (QIS5).  The CEA’s director general, Michaela Koller, said: “Although we welcome the modifications that the European Commission has already made to the implementing measures and the QIS5 specifications, the proposed measures are still too conservative in many areas and much work remains to be done before they truly

Solvency II:  European Commission consults on QIS5

The European Commission has published for consultation draft technical specifications for the fifth Solvency II Quantitative Impact Study (QIS5), which will be run from August to November this year.

If you have any comments on the draft technical specifications, please let the Society’s Solvency II Committee know (info@actuaries.ie).

CEIOPS  has published a paper titled “Solvency II Calibration Paper”.  The paper provides background information to the technical analysis carried out by CEIOPS for the calibration of key parameters of the Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) standard formula and the calculation of technical provisions for the purpose of Quantitative Impact Study 5 (QIS5).