Question ID: 1547
Regulation Reference: (EU) No 2015/2450 - templates for the submission of information to the supervisory authorities
Article: 35
Template: S.02.01
Status: Final
Date of submission: 26 Mar 2018
Question
We are currently conducting an Asset management market sizing study and would be grateful to have your expertise on the European Insurance market.
Looking specifically into to the insurance unit-linked market, last summer we were able to download from your website a Breakdown of the gross technical provisions in life insurance by country at the end of 2015. As an example Belgium was 30.457 million euros.
Visiting your website we now find an item called Technical provision – index-linked and unit-linked (R0690), we would like to understand if both items are identical, as we would like to build a multi-year perspective.
For 2016 the volume for Belgium was 31.205 million euros that would give a growth rate of 2,5%. The data comes from - Balance sheet by item [S.02.01/Quarterly/Solo/EUR million] (https://eiopa.europa.eu/Pages/Financial-stability-and-crisis-prevention/Insurance-Statistics.aspx).
In case the data items are not identical could you send us 2016 values of gross technical provisions in life insurance by country or 2015 values for Technical provision – index-linked and unit-linked (R0690)
EIOPA answer
Although we were not able to identify the exact source for the value of 30.457 for Belgium, it would seem that the item you refer to is close to what was published in the Solvency I statistical annex as “Gross TP” – “For life assurance policies where the investment risk is borne by the policyholders” in the Statistical time-series 2005-2015 based on Solvency I (see Table 7 in the file you can download under that heading on the website of the insurance statistics).
These items are indeed comparable to what you find under Solvency II as “Technical provision – index-linked and unit-linked (R0690)” in the sense that they generally capture the same kind of business (unit-linked).
However, it is important to bear in mind that the change from Solvency I to Solvency II (which entered into force 1 January 2016) involves a new regulatory regime with implications for the valuation of the regulatory balance sheet.
Therefore, we advise caution when comparing Solvency I and Solvency II data.