Eight insurance federations representing the biggest markets in the continent presented their postulates to EIOPA, the European regulatory institution and the European Commission. Apart from PIU, the appeal was signed by the following federations: ABI (Great Britain), ANIA (Italy), Assuralia (Belgium), FFSA (France), UNESPA (Spain), UNSAR (Romania), VVO (Austria).
The postulates of the insurance environment representatives are as follows:
- EIOPA should be cautious about the European Commission demands regarding the calibration of the capital requirements for long time investments. In the sector representatives opinion it is crucial that EIOPA considered the effect of this revision on financing the European economy. The Quantitative Impact Study (QIS) should start and its duration should be sufficient.
- The research must include testing of the anticyclical means, proposed by various parties, including among others: the adjusted extended correction, relevant for the life obligations of all the insurers, term structure extrapolation of the interest rate and the anticyclical premium.
- The discussion on the Omnibus II directive should be reactivated upon publishing the QIS research results and the insurance sector suggestions should be taken into account with regard to the anticyclical solutions and the transitional provisions related to the capital requirements.
- Taking into account the delays caused by the study, EIOPA and the European Commission should use that time to think of the methods of reducing costs of Solvency II implementation as well as to consider how to implement the materiality concept and proportionality principle predicted in the SII directive in practice.
The Appeal was announced during the 4th annual Solvency II conference which took place on 7th December in Paris. The insurance associations’ representatives reminded about the key role of the sector in the EU economy financing. They underlined the very important mission of the insurance companies ensuring security and safety to the EU citizens. The participants in the conference stressed out that the insurance companies of the EU nowadays manage the assets in the amount of EUR 7,700 million which is more than half of the EU gross national product.
