European regulator loses patience, moves to legislate transparency

Europe's top insurance regulator lost its patience waiting for improved transparency from the industry and will turn to legislators to enforce an open-book approach.

Dogged by insurers’ refusal to publish their individual results of regulatory stress testing, the European regulatory authority EIOPA is now demanding the requirement be written into the EU directive 2009/138/EC which governs solvency II.

European insurers are “robust, mature and confident enough to act with similar levels of transparency as other parts of the financial sector,” EIOPA wrote in an opinion to the European Parliament, Council and Commission.

“Our experience over the past years has shown that without making it a legal requirement, individual disclosures would in all likelihood remain the exception rather than the standard for the sector,” EIOPA chief Petra Hielkema (pictured) said in releasing the opinion.

“We have now taken the initiative to ensure that (re)insurers adhere to similar levels of transparency as other parts of the financial system.”

In the latest round of regulatory stress tests, only 8 of 44 participating insurers agreed to publish their results, an increase of 4 over the course of three years in which EIOPA had cajoled insurers to join in.

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