PCI Urges Progress on U.S.-EU Trade Pact for Trans-Atlantic Insurance Market

The Property Casualty Insurers Association of America (PCI) has issued a statement urging negotiators to make progress on enhancing the proposed U.S.-EU Trade agreement to include mutual recognition of the U.S. and EU regulatory systems.

“The European Union (EU) and the United States (U.S.) are the two largest insurance markets in the world. For the most part, insurance trade between the U.S. and EU flows smoothly with effective regulation on both sides of the Atlantic,” said David Snyder, PCI’s vice president, international policy. “The proposed trade agreement could further the critical goal of on-going efforts to secure mutual recognition of the U.S. and EU regulatory systems.”

Snyder, who testified on behalf of PCI at the High Level Regulatory Cooperation Forum, noted that as the U.S. insurance regulatory system is currently being updated with new global concepts, negotiators should keep in mind that the U.S. system has worked well through the years and reflects the unique character and diversity of the U.S. insurance market.

His principle objective was to make sure that the negotiations “not impose one party’s regulatory system on the other, but should instead lead to mutual recognition, including a finding that the U.S. system is exempt from Solvency II equivalence or that the U.S. system is equivalent,” said the PCI.

“It is critical that on-going mutual recognition be a result of any insurance negotiations and that the regulatory processes comply with the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development’s recommendations,” Snyder added.

Source: Property Casualty Insurers Association of America

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