23 April 2018

EIOPA defines its supervisory convergence priorities

The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published its supervisory convergence plan for 2018-2019 for the insurance sector, focussing on the implementation of Solvency II and conduct of business supervision.

Supervisory convergence should ensure a high, effective and consistent level of supervision throughout the European Union, granting a similar level of protection to all European policyholders and beneficiaries. 

To strengthen further supervisory convergence for 2018 and 2019, EIOPA defined the following three priority areas:

• Implementation of the common supervisory culture and new supervisory tools
• Risks to the internal market and the level playing field which may lead to supervisory arbitrage
• Supervision of emerging risks 

The implementation of a common supervisory culture will include the further specification of each of the key characteristics of the common supervisory culture. In addition, EIOPA will develop common benchmarks for the supervision of internal models, work on a common basis for the supervisory assessment of conduct risks throughout a product’s life cycle, perform a thematic review on travel insurance and define good practices for the supervision of intra-group transactions and risks concentrations.

To address risks to the internal market and to the level playing field, EIOPA will analyse the consistency of the calculations of technical provisions in general and in a cross-border context in particular for non-life business such as the “decennial liability insurance” and “medical malpractice insurance”. Furthermore, special attention will be paid to the assessment of internal model outcomes, the detection of potential unsustainable cross-border business models and the establishment of specific collaboration platforms where needed.

In the area of supervision of emerging risks, EIOPA will develop good practices on the supervision of IT security and governance, including supervisory expectations on insurance undertakings’ practices on cyber security and explore efficient ways to perform a cyber-attack penetration test. A thematic review of the insurance industry’s use of big data as well as the monitoring of the potential consequences of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union will continue to ensure consistency in supervisory approaches. 

The priorities of the supervisory plan were identified according to their impact on policyholders and on financial stability as well as on the level playing field or the functioning of the internal market.

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