The ORSA requirement : insurance practitioners’ concerns

Abstract

ORSA requires every insurance company to demonstrate that it has an effective Risk Management program, with scenario analysis, stress testing and capital solvency models in place that can help it withstand normal and extreme risk events. Each ORSA report should have risk management activities unique to the company and provide a clear explanation as to the policies, processes, and procedures it uses to identify, treat, and monitor risks to the organization in a way that the report and models used reflect the most likely and accurate picture of the company's financial performance in normal and extreme situations. The bottom line for insurance undertakings in ORSA is to provide their regulators with an insight into their ability to manage risks and stay solvent. This paper uncovers the concerns and respective dangers faced by Insurance undertakings when drawing up and using the ORSA report. It shows that, in practice there are some crucial concerns about this report, which need to be looked into and understood and which seemingly are not always being well addressed by the employees and the respective Boards. Thereby, the results of ORSA, may not be reliable and are prone to dangers and limitations. The aim is to trigger debate among insurance undertakings as to how they can apply and manage these concerns, dangers and limitations.