BoE: Senior Insurance Managers Regime - a streamlined approach for non-Solvency II firms

27 March 2015

Those who run regulated firms should have clearly defined responsibilities and behave with integrity, honesty, and skill. The SIMR is being introduced to facilitate this. On 23 March, the PRA set out final rules, following consultation, in respect of how the SIMR will apply to Solvency II firms.

This consultation paper seeks feedback on draft rules that set out how the Prudential Regulation Authority intends to apply the Senior Insurance Managers Regime in a streamlined manner to firms outside of the scope of Solvency II.

The streamlined SIMR will apply to insurance firms that are not Solvency II firms. It will also apply on a transitional basis to run-off firms, so long as these firms are not subject to the Solvency II rules in accordance with Transitional Measures 2 in the Solvency II Firms section of the PRA Rulebook. Collectively, the firms to which the streamlined SIMR will apply are described as ‘non-Directive firms’ or ‘NDFs’.

NDFs pose different risks to the PRA’s objectives compared with Solvency II firms. For example, almost all of these firms have assets of less than £25 million and annual premium income of less than £5 million. Accordingly, many features of the SIMR have been streamlined to take a more proportionate approach to the way the regime would apply to NDFs.

The draft rules set out proposals for:

• How the current list of possible controlled functions would be simplified to a single small insurer senior management function (SISMF)
• How the fitness and propriety of those individuals running NDFs will be assessed
• How conduct standards would be applied to the senior managers of NDFs

This consultation closes on Friday 15 May 2015.

Full news

Consultation paper

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