Compendium of Publications - The Geneva Association

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Compendium of Publications of The Geneva Association
Key Financial Stability Issues in Insurance—An
account of The Geneva Association’s ongoing
dialogue on systemic risk with regulators and
policy-makers, Follow-up report on Systemic
Risk in Insurance
The Geneva Association, Geneva, July 2010.
This report is based on a series of background papers and
special presentations on systemic risk in insurance created
between March and June 2010. It summarises the insurance
industry’s thinking—as advanced and crystallised by The
Geneva Association—on these areas which include both
corporate activities (e.g. asset management) and regulatory
measures (e.g. crisis resolution mechanisms).
The Geneva Association General Assembly
Review 2010
The Geneva Association, Geneva, July 2010.
This review is a retrospective on some of the key discussion at The Geneva Association’s 37th annual
General Assembly, the most prestigious gathering of insurance CEOs worldwide. Comprising essays by
CEOs, Chief Regulators and leading commentators it is intended to provide an insight into the General
Assembly and some of the strategic issues discussed by this key forum for insurance leadership. Subjects
include systemic risk regulation, climate change, developments in liability and law, demographics as well
as opportunities open to the industry.
Systemic Risk in Insurance—An analysis of insurance and financial stability,
Special Report of The Geneva Association Systemic Risk Working Group
The Geneva Association, Geneva, March 2010
The financial crisis has exposed flaws in the supervisory
system and engendered calls to re-regulate the financial
sector. Among the many proposals under consideration
or implementation is the idea of applying more stringent
supervision and, perhaps, more onerous regulations to
“systemically relevant institutions”. This proposal is usually
conceived as applying to banks. However, international
institutions, such as the Financial Stability Board (FSB),
have recently suggested that a similar approach be applied
to insurers. The consequence of getting these systemic risk
reforms wrong would not only be severely damaging to the
insurance industry, but to the economy as well.
This report examines the performance of the insurance
industry during the crisis, assesses the application of FSB’s
proposal on systemic risk to insurance and develops first
recommendations to address current regulatory gaps and
strengthen industry risk management practices.
This report does not intend to dispute the proposed criteria
for systemic risk. On the contrary, these criteria are used
to explain why insurance activities present far less systemic risk than banking activities. And, more
important for the regulatory purposes, they show that systemic risk accrues not to firms as such but to
the activities of those firms.