EIOPA - European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority

  • Gabriel Bernardino
  • EIOPA observed in several issues of its Financial Stability Report (2015, 2016d,e) the increasing penetration of unit and index-linked product in the market and warned on the potential implications for the policyholders.  (p37)

2017 - EIOPA - Systemic risk and macroprudential policy in insurance - 77p

  • 2015 - EIOPA - Financial Stability Report - 92p
  • 2017 - EIOPA - Systemic risk and macroprudential policy in insurance - 77p
  • 2018 - EIOPA - Other potential macroprudential tools and measures to enhance the current framework - 76p
  • 2019 0204 - Gabriel Bernardino - Systemic Risk in the Insurance Secto - [VIDEO-YouTube]
  • 2020 0211 - Alessandro Fontana (EIOPA) on Insurance and Systemic Risk.  University of St. Gallen Webinar Series - [VIDEO-YouTube]
  • 2020 1203 - EIOPA - Report on Long-term Guarantees Measures and Measures on Equity Risk 2020 - 147p
  • 2022 0221 - EIOPA - Supervisory Statement On Supervision Of Run-Off Undertakings - 19p
  • 3.2. Partial run-off undertakings are undertakings where only part of the business is discontinued while the rest of its business is in going concern.
    • (p4) - For the purpose of this Supervisory Statement, partial run-off refers to the cases where a material part of the undertaking’s business is stopped13 (i.e. it excludes the cases where a minority of nonmaterial products/line of business is discontinued).
    • 13 Covering also cases when premiums can still be paid with new liabilities of the insurer(no contractual guarantee on these future premiums - included or not included in the contract boundaries), such as contracts with flexible premiums or universal life.

2022 0221 - EIOPA - Supervisory Statement On Supervision Of Run-Off Undertakings - 19p

  • (p20) - On the one hand, unit-linked business is on average on the rise as in some countries traditional products are currently phased out.
  • On the other hand, it is in decline for many countries as policyholders are simply not willing to carry the investment risk in times of low yields (see Figure 2.1). 
  • (p24) - A clear message emerged from the 2014 EIOPA stress test (based on year-end data of 2013) showing that for most countries the duration of life insurers’ liabilities is higher than that of assets.
  • This message came together with the finding that the average return of the covering assets is also below the average level of the guarantees in many countries (Figure 2.6). 
  • (p25) - Given the still important stock of guaranteed return contracts in many member states, of which the duration is often longer than that of the covering assets, a renewed decline in long-term interest rates would further weaken insurance companies’ capacities to repay relatively high rates of return, that were guaranteed when market rates were considerably higher.
  • Business models are suffering from depressed interest rates as guarantees are in the money and insurance companies are required to match assets and liabilities, hence increasing the cost of managing their investments. 

2015 - EIOPA - Financial Stability Report - 92p