As part of our 8th Insurance & Financial Services Seminar held in London on 6th October, we hosted an industry panel session to discuss the UK’s potential Solvency II reforms and how these might impact insurers’ investment strategies and their appetite to invest in illiquid assets.

The panellists were:

• Marc Storan – Chair of the panel
• Max Cawthorn – Senior Strategy Manager at Pension Insurance Corporation Capital
• Sam Tufts – Head of New Assets at Phoenix Group
• Nick Ford – Head of Risk & Capital at Hymans Robertson

Key takeaways from the discussion included:

1. Whilst there was strong acknowledgment that there was still uncertainty of where the reforms would land, the panel felt the overall reform package would fall short of the positive reforms the industry wanted to see.
2. The panel highlighted the lack of detail to date in the proposed reforms regarding the current asset eligibility rules, and that the current rigidity was stifling even greater insurance investments in UK productive assets.
3. There were concerns that the potential revisions to the MA calibration may prove to have the opposite effect of the HM Treasury’s’ overall objectives aligned to the reforms.

Download our full article to read the questions which were put to the panel and a summary of the discussion which took place.

Click to read our full article