Eiopa chair confident insurers will escape debt crisis

European insurers will weather the sovereign debt crisis, the chair of the EU’s recently established insurance regulator has predicted.

In an interview with insurancetimes.co.uk, European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (Eiopa) chairman Gabriel Bernardino said that the organisation’s recently completed stress tests had been drawn up too early to take full account of recent developments in the Greek, Irish and Portugese debt crises.

But he expressed confidence in the sector’s ability to withstand further shocks.

Bernardino said: “If you look at the most stressed situation we have now in the three countries with the most problems, the exposures are manageable. Of course this is something that we will continue to monitor.”

He also told insurancetimes.co.uk that internal models are likely to become more common under the Solvency II regime than they are currently.

And he rejected suggestions that Solvency II , arguing that proposals to revamp the Solvency II timetable would give European regulators time to implement Solvency II during 2013, enabling the directive to be enforced from the beginning of the following year.

Click here to read the full interview with Gabriel Bernardino.