Regulator to halve paperwork

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority has reacted to industry concerns about compliance costs by issuing a discussion paper outlining measures aimed at making life easier for general insurers.

The paper, released late last week, entails changes that the regulator claims will reduce the paperwork encountered by general insurers by about half.

APRA member John Trowbridge said the paper represented a part of APRA’s implementation of recommendation 38 of the HIH Royal Commission, which states that APRA should prudently regulate general insurance groups and apply a group minimum capital requirement.

He said a key theme in industry responses to earlier discussion papers had been the reporting burden for consolidated general insurance groups.

“APRA has noted industry sensitivity to compliance costs and has undertaken extensive consultation with the industry to assist in the development of the reporting framework proposed in the paper,” Trowbridge said.

“Group reporting requirements will contain less than half the detail required of each individual insurer within the group, and reporting will only be required semi-annually rather than quarterly,” he said.

Trowbridge said that although group reporting would be less detailed than that for individual APRA-authorised insurers it would still provide APRA with the necessary information for it to carry out its supervisory role effectively for insurance groups.