Annuities' Non-U.S. Reinsurers May Face New Tests

News May 31, 2024 at 11:57 AM
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What You Need To Know

  • Some regulators worry that insurers could use reinsurance to reduce the assets behind annuities to unsafe levels.
  • Insurers would prefer to see regulators test the highest-risk reinsurance arrangements.
  • An annuity holder asked regulators to put safety before professional cordiality.
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Reinsurers based outside the United States could face new financial tests when they assume responsibility for U.S. life insurance policies and annuity contracts.

A panel at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners is considering proposals for testing the offshore reinsurers' cash flow, to increase the odds that the reinsurers will have the financial strength to make good on life and annuity benefit promises.

Fred Andersen, a Minnesota insurance regulator, told the NAIC panel in March that many U.S. life and annuity issuers are making reinsurance deals with companies in jurisdictions with reserving rules that are different from U.S. rules.

"In some cases, reserves are substantially lower, disappear, or can even be negative," Andersen said, according to a slide deck for a presentation he gave March 15. "It is important to know if the reserve amounts are adequate."

Representatives for the offshore reinsurers contend that they are already subject to oversight by their own regulators, and the American Council of Life Insurers has suggested that a poorly designed asset adequacy testing program could lead to high costs for insurers and reinsurers without doing much to verify or improve reinsurance strength.

What it means: You may wonder why so many life and annuity issuers are making reinsurance deals with companies based in Bermuda and other offshore jurisdictions and whether that's a problem.

State insurance regulators have had the same thoughts.

Offshore reinsurers: A reinsurer provides insurance for insurance companies.

The "direct writer," or insurance company that originally wrote a block of business, can use reinsurance to change how the business behaves as well as to protect itself against claim risk.

Offshore reinsurance has become much more popular with U.S. life and annuity issuers in recent years due to the effects of new reserving regulations, the pressure on issuers' earnings caused by dramatic fluctuations in interest rates and stock prices, and changes in accounting rules that have made the earnings of public insurers prepared using U.S. generally accepted accounting principles look more volatile.

Offshore reinsurers have reinsured more than $800 billion in U.S. life and annuity business since 2017, according to Moody's.

NAIC's asset adequacy testing project: The United States leaves regulation of the business of insurance, including non-variable annuities, to the states.

The NAIC is a Kansas City, Missouri-based group that helps states share the resources needed to regulate insurance. It helps states develop reserving rules and examination procedures for evaluating insurers' financial strength.

The NAIC's Life Insurance Actuarial Task Force has been working on an effort to update offshore reinsurance rules for more than a year.

U.S. life insurers that cede business to reinsurers continue to be responsible for the business, but some regulators worry that there could be situations when the direct writers and the reinsurers do not have enough combined resources to meet the policy or contract obligations.

Andersen focused attention on the effort in March, by presenting ideas for testing proposals at an NAIC meeting in Phoenix.

Andersen noted that concerns include which reinsurers and reinsurance arrangements to test; whether to look at each reinsurance arrangement on its own, or part or all of the reinsurer's business; and how much the overall strength of the reinsurer matters.

Commenters' perspectives: Brian Bayerle, the chief life actuary at the ACLI, and Colin Masterson, a policy analyst there, suggested in a comment letter that regulators should look mainly at the creditworthiness of the reinsurer and conduct additional tests only when an arrangement is especially important to the finances of the direct writer.

Bayerle and Masterson warned against looking at each reinsurance arrangement on its own, without looking at the reinsurer's other business.

"The long-term adequacy of a company's assets is not determined by a single liability or asset type, but rather the overall performance of the company across all functions," Bayerle and Masterson wrote.

David Self, chair of the Cayman International Reinsurance Company Association, wrote to say that all life and annuity reinsurance agreements between the U.S. direct writers and Cayman Islands reinsurers are collateralized at U.S. statutory reserve levels and held in the United States in credit trusts or custodial accounts.

Aaron Sarfatti, chief strategy officer at Equitable, suggested that regulators should exempt ordinary reinsurance arrangements that are not very large when compared with the direct writer's size but look closely at large, possibly high-risk arrangements.

"Regulators have demonstrated the potential for firms to reduce total asset requirements — and thereby policyholder security — by engaging in asset-intensive reinsurance," Sarfatti wrote.

Peter Gould, a variable annuity owner, wrote to ask regulators to put insurer safety before convenience for the insurers.

"While I understand professional cordiality, mutual respect and common stakeholder concerns, the level of deference to the 'regulated' gives the impression of a relationship that's too 'comfortable,'" Gould wrote. "Don't get me wrong — I'm a believer in insurance products — I just don't want to be a ward of my State Guaranty Fund."

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