On 6 November 2017 the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) released a consultation paper on its second set of advice to the European Commission on the Solvency II review. This follows on from an earlier consultation paper and subsequent report released by EIOPA in July and October, respectively, on its first set of advice on the Solvency II review.
The second consultation paper is very detailed and sets out EIOPA's proposed advice on a number of areas including various Solvency Capital Requirement (SCR) risk modules (premium and reserve risk, mortality and longevity risk, catastrophe risk, market risk, counterparty default risk), the risk margin, own funds and the look-though approach.
We are currently reviewing the consultation paper in detail and plan to publish a briefing note outlining EIOPA's proposals for each of the topics covered in the consultation paper in the coming weeks.
However in advance of that, we have highlighted a few key proposals in this blog post:
- EIOPA is proposing that the calibration of the standard formula mortality risk capital charge should increase from 15% to 25% (as set out in section 3 of the consultation paper).
- EIOPA is proposing changes to the methodology underlying the interest rate risk capital charge to take account of the low interest rate environment. Two options are proposed in the consultation paper (see section 7).
- EIOPA is proposing simplifications to the application of the " look through' approach for the purposes of the SCR calculation (as set out in section 15).
- EIOPA is proposing to keep the cost of capital rate used in the calculation of the risk margin unchanged at 6% (as set out in section 18).
- EIOPA is proposing changes to the standard formula factors for the standard deviation of premium and reserve risk for some non-life lines of business, including medical expense insurance (see section 1). For medical expense insurance EIOPA is proposing to increase the factors for standard deviation of premium risk from 5.0% to 6.0% and for reserve risk from 5.0% to 6.6%.