The International Accounting Standards Board’s (IASB) long-awaited insurance contracts standard was finalised in May 2017. The implications for the industry are profound.
To help you navigate through the changes, KPMG Ireland is pleased to host a series of webcasts and webmails during 2018 focusing on key aspects of the standard, the business impacts, and how they can be best addressed to ensure an efficient and secure transition.
The focus will be on
Link to series launch
We hope you continue to find our IFRS 17 series of interest.
On 7 February, the Central Bank of Ireland issued updated ‘Minimum Competency Code 2017 and Minimum Competency Regulations 2017 – Questions and Answers’. A number of Q&As were added to clarify the application of the MCC to captive (re)insurers and to staff of both EEA branches & non-EEA-branches belonging to Irish firms. The updated MCC Q&As can be found here.
Systemic risk and macro-prudential policy in insurance
EIOPA published on the 6th February the first in a series of papers with the aim of contributing to the debate on systemic risk and macro-prudential policy. The objective is the first paper is to identify and analyse the sources of systemic risk in insurance from a conceptual point of view. EIOPA’s paper on systemic risk and macro-prudential policy in insurance can be viewed here (PDF, 1.8MB).
2018 Work Programme
On the 30th January, EIOPA published an updated work programme for 2018.
2017 Market Development Report Occupational Pensions and Cross-border Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provisions (IORPs)
EIOPA Published its ‘2017 Market development report on occupational pensions and cross-border IORPs’. The report can be accessed here. The report presents the Authority’s findings based on both qualitative and quantitative data collected from EU National Competent Authorities, and also from multi-country sponsors, cross-border practitioners, social partners and academia.
While traditional insurers may still have the upper hand with historically strong customer relationships and data to draw from, many are facing challenges and risks in stepping up their analytics against rising insurtechs. Nonetheless, we believe there are four areas where insurers can focus on to create the environment and outperform in data and analytics.
Based on KPMG International’s survey, insurance CEOs’ top strategic priority is to become more ‘data-driven’, and almost 90 percent of them have put new investment into data and analytics. Despite making strong progress, few have achieved the analytic sophistication needed to rival their newer, more agile competitors, and 43 percent of them are concerned that the lack of quality data is hindering depth of insight.
If traditional insurers want to truly compete and win in this new data-driven environment, they will need to move faster, with more purpose, towards a more advanced form of analytics.
Whatever your maturity in analytics is, feel free to contact me if you would like to discuss how we can help step up your analytics game in 2018 and beyond.
About the Insurance CEO Outlook article series – Picking up the pace
KPMG International surveyed more than 100 CEOs at some of the largest insurance companies and asked them about their greatest challenges and strategies towards growth, innovation, risk and compliance, cyber security and data analytics. Despite challenges there are plenty of bright spots.
In the article series, KPMG professionals present their research findings and provide insights to help insurance executives make the most of the changing environment.
As insurers seek to embrace innovation and re-think the relationship with their customers, many are tapping into ‘connected insurance’, where they aim to provide not only emergency assistance and preventative help, but also seamless support in all aspects of their customers’ daily lives.
How are insurers pursuing connected insurance and what does it take? Find out more.
With the connected approach, new technologies enable lifestyle-integrated interactions, while data and analytics allow the insurer to better understand their customers, enhance underwriting decisions and refine pricing for targeted segments.
Three core areas of connected insurance development we see today are in health, home and transportation. Recently, KPMG professionals in Singapore worked with an insurer to develop a ‘connected health’ program to provide affordable health insurance to early stage diabetes patients. The future of insurance is not about the product or technology, but how an insurer can deliver daily value to their customers.