The current selection process by the Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC) will be ongoing, not a one-time thing, according to the chief advisor to Deloitte Insurance Group.
Indeed, after completing its current review of U.S. insurers as non-bank systemically important financial institutions (SIFI), the FSOC is likely to next turn its attention to large international insurers doing business in the U.S., according to Deloitte's Howard Mills, who is a former New York insurance commissioner.
"Although they are not headquartered in the U.S., they do most of their business in the U.S., too much to not to be a U.S. SIFI," he said. "The FSOC will have to deal with that question."
He says the first companies to be so examined are likely to include Prudential Plc of Great Britain, Allianz SE of Germany, Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A., Aviva plc of Great Britain, AXA S.A. Inc. of France and Ping An Insurance Group Company of China, Ltd.
These companies, as well as American International Group (AIG), Prudential Financial and MetLife, were cited last week as global SIFIs by the G-20's Financial Stability Board.
In the U.S., the FSOC recently designated AIG as a SIFI and seeks to designate Pru Financial as a SIFI. It has also moved MetLife to the third stage of such designation.
Pru Financial is challenging the FSOC, and a hearing on the issue was held by he FSOC this week. MetLife said it would also challenge such a designation.
In other comments, Mills said that "the fact is that the insurance industry is unanimous in its view that no insurer should be a SIFI."
