Insurance industry to face ‘dynamic’ stress tests

Insurance firms are set to face “dynamic” stress tests in 2025 to ensure the sector can remain resilient in the face of “adverse scenarios”.

In a statement released yesterday (3 October 2023), the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) said it would simulate a sequential set of events over a short period of time.

As these tests are carried out, the PRA will asses the sector’s solvency and liquidity resilience as well as the effectiveness of insurers’ risk management and management actions.

“The dynamic nature of the 2025 exercise represents a significant change from previous exercises,” the regulator added.

“[It will] inform the PRA’s supervisory response following a market-wide adverse scenario.”

Regulation

This came following the industry undergoing a regulation shakeup.

For example, the FCA’s personal lines pricing rules, which came into force last year (1 January 2022), mean insurers can no longer differentiate on the price charged to homeowners and motorists based on whether they are new customers or renewing their policies.

Meanwhile, the Consumer Duty regulation requires insurance firms to review their products and services against a new standard of fairness, with companies working to measure, analyse and benchmark their performance across a number of different metrics.

And earlier this year (29 June 2023), the PRA published CP12/13 Review of Solvency II: Adapting to the UK insurance market, with the aim of creating a new UK regulatory regime for insurance firms, known as Solvency UK.

To ensure firms are ready to face the new stress tests, the PRA is set to engage with the industry over the next six months, with a view to providing more details of the exercise during the first half of 2024.

This includes providing insurers with participation, design and timeline details.

Once the simulations are complete, results of the exercise will be disclosed at an aggregate industry level.