Thursday 16 June 2011

Equivalence, captives and Solvency II - different strokes...

A subject close to my heart as a Manxman, I keep an eye on equivalence-related material, and this has been a relatively busy week. Guernsey have had a nice soiree in London to emphatically support their captive industry by confirming there would be no Solvency II equivalence sought.

For a captive-heavy country this makes sense - Ireland (who like a bit of captive themselves) have been prominent in catering for some element of proportionality at national level, and at a Solvency II presentation in the Isle of Man (where we are also partial to captives) in November 2010, the locals were equally vociferous on the problems it could cause them, so were delighted to hear that equivalence was not on the agenda.

This contrasts to the Bermudans, who are seemingly happy enough to trod the path to equivalence as early as possible. However, there seems to be a desire for a specific carve-out to put some meat on the bones of the proportionality concept which, at this juncture, is most certainly not a given.

Four captive-loving islands, four different approaches - whoever's approach is ultimately victorious, I hope it is for the right reasons.

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