On January 25, the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (“EIOPA“) published the results of its peer review that examined how national competent authorities (“NCAs“) evaluated the propriety of administrative, management or supervisory body (“AMSB“) members and qualifying shareholders between January 2016 and May 2017.

Important areas of risk include:

• A number of regulatory frameworks are not aligned with the Solvency II framework and NCAs are applying different standards and scope while assessing propriety.
• Very few NCAs perform continuing assessment of the propriety of qualifying shareholders and AMSB members. Continuing assessment should involve proactive, risk-based and proportionate engagement resulting from the NCAs’ own initiative, as part of its supervisory activities.
• Some NCAs do not make their supervisory expectations and standards known internally to supervisory staff and externally to insurers.

Insurers are required to be owned and run by persons of integrity and of good repute to ensure sound and proper management under the Solvency II Directive (2009/138/EC).

The results published by EIOPA can be found here.