(Image source: Milliman report, “Regulatory diversity across Asia,” July 2018. )

Innovation means new technology and new business models, but also new markets and ways of reaching their consumers—particularly emerging markets. Asia is perhaps the most promising of these, and global actuarial consulting firm Milliman (Seattle) has released a new report, “Regulatory diversity across Asia,” to help life insurers navigate the basics of compliance as they seek to access the region’s customers. The report offers insights on current regulations applicable to life insurers across 14 Asian markets: Brunei, mainland China, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam. A copy of the report can be downloaded at http://www.milliman.com/insight/2018/Regulatory-diversity-across-Asia/.

“We work with insurers across Asia, many of whom have operations spanning several markets,” comments Paul Sinnott, Principal and Consulting Actuary, Milliman. “With different regulations and compliance requirements in various jurisdictions, there was clearly a need for a concise summary of the evolving life insurance regulatory environment across Asia. We decided to prepare a Milliman report to serve as a single-point of reference. We hope that this will prove to be valuable to our clients and the industry.”

Milliman says that, with the markets in Asia in different stages of evolution, it plans to update the analysis of the changing regulatory environment periodically. The firm offers the following key observations from the Asian report include:

• The markets in Asia are still “rules-based” (as opposed to “principle-based”). Detailed rules and regulations govern different aspects of the industry.
• Regulators are increasingly looking at areas such as customer protection and meeting policyholders’ reasonable expectations (PREs), although these areas are still at a nascent stage in many of the markets.

The firm also reports an increasing focus on strengthening the governance environment through the Appointed Actuary/Chief Actuary systems and the role of board committees. “There is a clear trend towards adoption of RBC (Risk Based Capital) regimes and the enhancement of such frameworks, wherever already adopted,” Milliman’s announcement of the study’s release says.

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