Marwa Benammar, VEGA product owner and actuary at Milliman, discusses the functionality and benefits that VEGA, Milliman's cloud-based Solvency II reporting and compliance solution, offers insurers. She also explains the future product development for VEGA

What is VEGA?

VEGA is a standard cloud-based solution, designed by Milliman and powered by Milliman Mind. VEGA's functionalities include calculation, reporting and workflow that we believe to be essential for the secure production of the Standard Formula and regulatory reporting, including XBRL generation.

The software is composed of three optional modules in the same framework and applies to both solo and group insurance companies:

• Solvency II ratio with SCR Standard Formula calculation
• QRT/XBRL
• ORSA calculation

When was the solution launched?

The first version of VEGA was released at the early stage of Solvency II in 2012. A first cycle has been completed with the release of Vega V6 in 2023.

How is VEGA innovating?

VEGA's latest version, named VEGA New Generation, includes many innovating skills. Based on VEGA's customers' experience, we worked on a new way to produce the reporting to facilitate the production of the QRT and XBRL.

The play XBRL and build XBRL allows the "XBRLization" of the data as soon as they are uploaded into the tool without waiting for the complete set of QRT to be ready. VEGA is changing the way companies manage their regulatory reporting process.

With the significant increase of the numbers of controls included in the XBRL taxonomy – from 1,000 controls within taxonomy 2.7 to 5,000 within the last version of the taxonomy (2.8) – the current XBRL process management used by insurance companies is no longer tenable. Companies manage their business QRT sequentially depending on the availability of the data, and when all the QRT is completed, the XBRL generation is performed highlighting controls in errors and the need to go back into the source systems to correct the source data.

How does VEGA help insurers with Solvency II and regulatory reporting?

VEGA is a multi-user and multi-site solution. The web-like application integrated in the solution allows all stakeholders involved in the production, analysis and validation (risk department, actuarial department, finance department and management) to get a detailed and/or global vision of the whole operation.

This solution enables the automation and the industrialisation of regulatory reports (e.g. QRTs) as well as customised reports.

VEGA includes an audit trail of all the calculations to facilitate the validation and analysis of the results.

The centralised and secure calculation process within VEGA facilitates governance, control and transparency in the production of the regulatory returns.

VEGA replaces Standard Formula spreadsheets and it strongly limits the operational risks associated with Excel by securing data flows, calculations, audit trail and production of internal and regulatory reporting.

VEGA offers multiple standard and user-defined analysis to enable different granularity and views of the company's reporting.

How do you manage the regulatory updates?

We provide customers with an annual version which includes the EIOPA updates covering all the topics (SCR, QRT, XBRL). The Milliman Regulatory Watch team analyses all of the EIOPA documents from the consultation papers to the definitive texts, and works closely with our development team to release the updated version without delay.

How much time prior to the reporting period do you release these annual versions?

For taxonomy 2.8 release by EIOPA on March 2023, we provided our clients with the specifications by early May 2023 and the version was released in September 2023, then 4-5 months prior to the reporting deadline.

This is a key point for insurance companies, to be able to adapt their source system and test their data in advance of the reporting period.
Thanks to this process, all the VEGA customers are ready for the reporting period.

How does VEGA integrate with Milliman's other technology tools / third-party platforms?

VEGA is compatible with any tool on the market. Most of our clients use automatic exports from the source system to feed VEGA where others use our API Rest for a full industrialisation.

Are you seeing any new trends in insurers' standard formula SCR and regulatory reporting?

Insurers are faced with a significant amount of data to report every quarter and also a big one annually, with:

• a significant size of controls on data quality increasing every year
• tight deadlines
• and involving many departments inside the company

The regulatory framework evolves every year by changing the templates and increasing the number of data quality checks

VEGA helps by

• Allowing insurers to industrialise their reporting process
• Raise controls in errors at the early process (import stage) instead of waiting until the end when all the reporting package is completed
• Allowing stakeholders inside the company to cooperate easily
• Providing annual reporting updates version as soon as EIOPA is issuing the technical specifications, many months prior to the deadlines allowing insurers to adapt source systems and test new data checks in advance

Can you discuss your roadmap for the future product development of VEGA?

Two new modules will be released by Q2 2024. This includes a new ORSA module allowing insurers to manage business plans, financial production projection, SCR, profit and own fund calculations on central and adverse scenarios.

There will also be a stressed market value module for the computation line-by-line of all market SCRs

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