Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35Show full title

SECTION 2 U.K. [F1 Technical standards]

[F2 Article 3 U.K. The PRA's powers to make technical standards and publish technical information

1. For the purposes of using credit assessments from external credit assessment institutions (ECAIs) in the calculation of the Solvency Capital Requirement in accordance with the standard formula, the PRA may make technical standards on the allocation of credit assessments from ECAIs to an objective scale of credit quality steps.

2. The objective scale of credit quality steps referred to in Article 109a(1) of Directive 2009/138/EC must include credit quality steps 0 to 6.

3. The allocation of credit quality steps referred to in paragraph 1 must be consistent with the use of external credit assessments from ECAIs in the calculation of the capital requirements for credit institutions as defined in Article 4(1)(1) of Regulation (EU) No 575/2013 and financial institutions as defined in Article 4(1) (26) thereof.

4. For the purposes of facilitating the calculation of the market risk module referred to in rule 3.11 of the Solvency Capital Requirement – Standard Formula part of the PRA Rulebook, facilitating the calculation of the counterparty default risk module referred to in rule 3.12 of that part of the Rulebook, evaluating risk mitigation techniques referred to in rule 3.5 of the Solvency Capital Requirement – General Provisions part of the PRA Rulebook, and calculating technical provisions, the PRA may make technical standards on:

(a) lists of regional governments and local authorities, exposures to whom are to be treated as exposures to the central government of the jurisdiction in which they are established, provided that there is no difference in risk between such exposures because of the specific revenue-raising powers of the former, and specific institutional arrangements exist, the effect of which is to reduce the risk of default;

(b) the equity index referred to in Article 172(1) of this Regulation, in accordance with the detailed criteria established in Article 172;

(c) the adjustments to be made for currencies pegged to the euro in the currency risk sub-module referred to in rule 3.11 of the Solvency Capital Requirement – Standard Formula part of the PRA Rulebook, in accordance with the detailed criteria for the adjustments for currencies pegged to the euro for the purpose of facilitating the calculation of the currency risk sub-module.

5. The PRA must publish technical information including information concerning the symmetric adjustment referred to in the Solvency Capital Requirement – Standard Formula part of the PRA Rulebook on at least a quarterly basis.

6. For the purpose of facilitating the calculation of the health underwriting risk module referred to in rule 3.10 of the Solvency Capital Requirement – Standard Formula part of the PRA Rulebook, the PRA may make technical standards on standard deviations in relation to specific national legislative measures of third countries which permit the sharing of claims payments in respect of health risk amongst insurance and reinsurance undertakings and which meet the criteria in paragraph 7.

7. The technical standards referred to in paragraph 6 must apply only to the national legislative measures of third countries which permit the sharing of claims payments in respect of health risk amongst insurance and reinsurance undertakings and which meet the following criteria:

(a) the mechanism for the sharing of claims is transparent and fully specified in advance of the annual period to which it applies;

(b) the mechanism for the sharing of claims, the number of insurance undertakings that participate in the health risk equalisation system (HRES) and the risk characteristics of the business subject to the HRES ensure that for each undertaking participating in the HRES the volatility of annual losses of the business subject to the HRES is significantly reduced by means of the HRES, both in relation to premium and to reserve risk;

(c) health insurance subject to the HRES is compulsory and serves as a partial or complete alternative to health cover provided by the statutory social security system;

(d) in the event of default of insurance undertakings participating in the HRES, one or more Member States' governments guarantee to meet the policy holder claims of the insurance business that is subject to the HRES in full.]

Textual Amendments

F2 Art. 3 substituted (31.12.2020) by The Solvency 2 and Insurance (Amendment, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/407), regs. 1(2), 11(4) (as amended by S.I. 2019/1390, regs. 1(4), 11(3)(b); S.I. 2020/1385, regs. 1(2), 54(2); and with savings in S.I. 2019/680, reg. 11); 2020 c. 1, Sch. 5 para. 1(1)

Article 4 U.K. General requirements on the use of credit assessments

1. Insurance or reinsurance undertakings may use an external credit assessment for the calculation of the Solvency Capital Requirement in accordance with the standard formula only where it has been issued by an External Credit Assessment Institution (ECAI) or endorsed by an ECAI in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council(1).

2. Insurance or reinsurance undertakings shall nominate one or more ECAI to be used for the calculation of the Solvency Capital Requirement according to the standard formula.

3. The use of credit assessments shall be consistent and such assessments shall not be used selectively

4. When using credit assessments, insurance and reinsurance undertakings shall comply with all of the following requirements:

(a) where an insurance or reinsurance undertaking decides to use the credit assessments produced by a nominated ECAI for a certain class of items, it shall use those credit assessments consistently for all items belonging to that class;

(b) where an insurance or reinsurance undertaking decides to use the credit assessments produced by a nominated ECAI, it shall use them in a continuous and consistent way over time;

(c) an insurance or reinsurance undertaking shall only use nominated ECAI credit assessments that take into account all amounts of principal and interest owed to it;

(d) where only one credit assessment is available from a nominated ECAI for a rated item, that credit assessment shall be used to determine the capital requirements for that item;

(e) where two credit assessments are available from nominated ECAIs and they correspond to different parameters for a rated item, the assessment generating the higher capital requirement shall be used;

(f) where more than two credit assessments are available from nominated ECAIs for a rated item, the two assessments generating the two lowest capital requirements shall be used. If the two lowest capital requirements are different, the assessment generating the higher capital requirement of those two credit assessments shall be used. If the two lowest capital requirements are the same, the assessment generating that capital requirement shall be used;

(g) where available, insurance and reinsurance undertakings shall use both solicited and unsolicited credit assessments.

5. Where an item is part of the larger or more complex exposures of the insurance or reinsurance undertaking, the undertaking shall produce its own internal credit assessment of the item and allocate it to one of the seven steps in a credit quality assessment scale. Where the own internal credit assessment generates a lower capital requirement than the one generated by the credit assessments available from nominated ECAIs, then the own internal credit assessment shall not be taken into account for the purposes of this Regulation.

[F3 6 . For the purposes of paragraph 5, the larger or more complex exposures of an undertaking shall include securitisation positions as referred to in Article 178(8) and (9) and re-securitisation positions.]

Textual Amendments

F3 Substituted by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2018/1221 of 1 June 2018 amending Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35 as regards the calculation of regulatory capital requirements for securitisations and simple, transparent and standardised securitisations held by insurance and reinsurance undertakings (Text with EEA relevance).

Article 5 U.K. Issuers and issue credit assessment

1. Where a credit assessment exists for a specific issuing program or facility to which the item constituting the exposure belongs, that credit assessment shall be used.

2. Where no directly applicable credit assessment exists for a certain item, but a credit assessment exists for a specific issuing program or facility to which the item constituting the exposure does not belong or a general credit assessment exists for the issuer, that credit assessment shall be used in either of the following cases:

(a) it produces the same or higher capital requirement than would otherwise be the case and the exposure in question ranks pari passu or junior in all respects to the specific issuing program or facility or to senior unsecured exposures of that issuer, as relevant;

(b) it produces the same or lower capital requirement than would otherwise be the case and the exposure in question ranks pari passu or senior in all respects to the specific issuing program or facility or to senior unsecured exposures of that issuer, as relevant.

In all other cases, insurance or reinsurance undertakings shall consider that there is no credit assessment by a nominated ECAI available for the exposure.

3. Credit assessments for issuers within a corporate group shall not be used as the credit assessment for another issuer within the same corporate group.

Article 6 U.K. Double credit rating for securitisation positions

By way of derogation from Article 4(4)(d), where only one credit assessment is available from a nominated ECAI for a securitisation position, that credit assessment shall not be used. The capital requirements for that item shall be derived as if no credit assessment by a nominated ECAI is available.

Textual Amendments

F1 Title 1 Ch. 1 Section 2 heading substituted (31.12.2020) by The Solvency 2 and Insurance (Amendment, etc.) (EU Exit) Regulations 2019 (S.I. 2019/407), regs. 1(2), 11(3) (as amended by S.I. 2020/1385, regs. 1(2), 54(2) and with savings in S.I. 2019/680, reg. 11)

(1)

Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 16 September 2009 on credit rating agencies (OJ L 302, 17.11.2009, p. 1).