19 December 2016

Fitch: Life insurer stress tests highlight diverse risk exposure

EIOPA tested 236 companies in 30 countries, covering 77% of the European non-linked life insurance market under two scenarios. The first showed that sustained low interest rates would lead to an aggregate fall in insurers' capital surpluses of EUR100bn and lead to liabilities exceeding assets for 1% of companies in the sample. The second, a "double-hit" in which liability costs rose while asset values fell, led to an aggregate EUR160bn reduction in insurers' capital, and to liabilities exceeding assets for 2% of companies in the sample.

These impacts would reduce the excess of assets over liabilities by 29% and 18%, respectively, compared to a baseline excess asset position of around EUR550bn across the sample. Insurers with high guaranteed rates on policies were most affected, with insurers in Sweden, Lithuania, Slovenia and Croatia particularly hard hit. In most markets, however, Fitch believes that insurers are well capitalised and able to withstand such stresses.

Fitch view that UK life insurers are well insulated from interest rate movements due to matching of assets and liabilities was borne out by the test results. The ratio of assets to liabilities fell by only around 1% in the UK insurance market under each stress, compared to over 10% for some other countries and around 2% across the EU on average. Insurers in Luxembourg, Liechtenstein and Denmark were also less affected by the stresses than those elsewhere.

EIOPA noted the high reliance of some companies on transitional arrangements, which contribute 60 percentage points to Solvency Capital Requirement coverage across the sample. The impact was greatest in Greece, Spain, the UK, Norway and Portugal. The varied use of transitional allowances between countries, and among different companies within markets, makes a direct comparison of insurers' headline S2 figures challenging.

EIOPA's testing also showed local government bonds dominating bond portfolios of insurers in some countries, in particular Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, and Poland, where they made up over 90% of bonds held. Under the S2 standard formula approach insurers do not have to hold capital against these government bonds, while internal model firms across the EU have been instructed to hold capital against those same bonds. This increases the difficulty of comparing S2 results between standard formula and internal model companies.

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