Solvency II in Insurance

Solvency II in Insurance

Solvency II in Insurance

Solvency II for Project or Programme Management Professionals

If you are a project manager or a programme manager there are some good opportunities in the financial services / insurance sectors. Have you heard ofSolvency II, sometimes written asSolvency 2? If you work in the insurance or an associated industry, then you must have been living in a cave not to have heard of it!

Every few years, a new financial services compliance initiative seems to appear that sets the financial service sector into a frenzy of activity. There have been many examples in the past. These include Basel II, WRAP, MiFID (Markets in Financial Instruments Directive), A Day, Sarbanes Oxley and TCF (Treating Customers Fairly).Solvency II is the latest directive that is occupying the minds of the insurance world.

The official description from the FSA is:

"Solvency 2 is a fundamental review of the capital adequacy regime for the European insurance industry. It aims to establish a revised set of EU-wide capital requirements and risk management standards that will replace the current Solvency 1 requirements. Solvency 2 will set out new, strengthened EU-wide requirements on capital adequacy and risk management for insurers with a view to reducing the likelihood of an insurer failing; the strengthened regime should reduce the possibility of consumer loss or market disruption in insurance."

So in simple terms, theSolvency II compliance initiative aims to stop what happened to Northern Rock (and the other banking disasters of recent months) from occurring in the Insurance industry. It is a major EU Directive and all EU based insurers will have to comply.

So, how does this affect Project Management professionals?

This directive is only part way through and for the insurance sector it is not proving easy to find candidates who have genuinely worked on, or managedSolvency II projects. For Project Managers and Programme Managers it is the age old catch 22 scenario how do you get Solvency experience if companies will not hire good PMs unless they haveSolvency II experience. So, if you have some good insurance or commercial business experience you should read up on it as it is a great opportunity for quick learning PMs.

You may not have direct experience or "hands on" experience of managingSolvency IIprojects. However, another useful business background forSolvency II programmes is experience of working on projects with Actuaries or within Actuarial Departments. A major part of allSolvency II Programmes involves close contact with Actuaries, and for those of us that have worked with Actuaries will realise that you need a different approach and skillset when managing them as stakeholders, getting information from them and gathering requirements from them. You obviously still need to be a good PM and demonstrate your excellent PM skills at interview, but experience of working with actuaries or actuarial knowledge is a great bonus

PMs who have gained around 3 months or so experience on aSolvency II project are in great demand. Also, it is often the smaller insurers that appreciate how important it is to get thisSolvency II stuff right, and are doing what they can to get the right people. So in conclusion, if you can get involved in aSolvency II Programme then do so, immediately.

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