General Insurance Article - Paul Clarke, PwC, comments on EIOPA guidelines

 “Despite the ongoing debates in trilogue, it is good news for insurers and asset managers to see EIOPA moving on with its Guidelines on Reporting and Disclosure under Solvency II. EIOPA is aware that it may be required to change elements of the reporting requirements once Omnibus II is final, however it is clear that this set of reporting requirements represents a fairly stable platform which will allow insurers to begin implementing their plans for Pillar 3.

  

 Insurers will need to have developed their Pillar 3 plans ahead of the go live date (currently January 2014) and in order to achieve this they will need as much time as possible to build the platform. By releasing the report now, EIOPA has given the market sufficient time to develop these plans ahead of schedule, but it will be tight.

 
 The release of this report will add more pressure onto policy makers in Brussels to reach agreement on the remaining contentious issues being debated in order to allow the industry to move on with its implementation plans for all aspects of Solvency II.

 
 It is encouraging to see aspects of the markets feedback being addressed in the revised templates. Areas such as proportionality appear to have been picked up in the context of asset reporting and more straightforward linkages between the spreadsheets.”