Archive

• What to expect in 2016?

  01 January 2016

  Solvency II comes into force today, but it will take a long time before firms enter a business-as-usual environment

• Solvency II spreads its tentacles

  29 December 2015

  Solvency II took longer than expected to be implemented in Europe, but what effect has that had on other risk-based capital initiatives across the globe? Asa Gibson reports

• The twists and turns of Solvency II negotiations

  22 December 2015

  A behind the scenes account of the drawn-out political negotiations, the private letters and corridor discussions, the unforeseen u-turns and the fiery arguments, the lengthy road trips and the snappy tweets, by Hugo Coelho

• ESRB's Mazzaferro: "We want to counter the narrative that insurers are not systemic"

  16 December 2015

  ESRB's head of secretariat makes the case for a countercyclical capital requirement and a liquidity requirement for insurers. Hugo Coelho reports

• Living up to the promise of internal models

  08 December 2015

  Supervisory approval is not the end of the Solvency II internal model process. From 1 January, models are for insurers to leverage and for insurers to lose. Hugo Coelho and Christopher Cundy report

• Preserving the diversity

  03 December 2015

  Designing Solvency II to fit the spectrum of EU insurers has not been entirely successful and national supervisors should be mindful of its threats to the business model of mutual firms, says Amice's Silvia Herms

• Life insurers stuck with the riddle of the risk margin

  01 December 2015

  Of all the innovations of Solvency II, the risk margin threatens to be the most painful for UK life insurers. The transitional benefit will provide relief against it on 1 January, but in the long run it may do more harm than good. Hugo Coelho reports

• Are the numbers up for operational risk modelling?

  24 November 2015

  The internal model application process and developments in the banking world have posed more questions about the merits of modelling operational risk under Solvency II. Asa Gibson reports

• Solvency II fuels risk of model convergence

  16 November 2015

  The demands of regulatory approval are creating a lack of diversity in insurance models and driving an increase in systemic risk, according to a joint industry and academic study. Sarfraz Thind reports

• How a 100% SCR stopped being sufficient capital

  12 November 2015

  Insurers are holding capital buffers larger than the minimum required under Solvency II, but is it the fault of the rules, the regulators or the market? Hugo Coelho reports