Supervisory convergence is one of the strategic priorities of the work programme for the coming years.
EIOPA promotes a common supervisory culture and consistent supervisory practices across the European Union (EU) Member States and the European Economic Area (EEA) in order to ensure a high, effective and consistent level of supervision, safeguarding a similar level of protection to all European policyholders and beneficiaries.
A common supervisory culture can be defined as a common understanding of the way supervisors think, behave and work within their community. The culture manifests itself in processes, procedures and behaviours. Everybody involved should agree on supervisory objectives and a common view of the key characteristics of high-quality and effective supervision.
The benefits of a common supervisory culture are:
- Insurance providers act honestly, fairly and professionally in the best interests of policyholders and beneficiaries.
- Laws and regulations are interpreted in the same way across Europe.
- Policyholders and beneficiaries have a similar level of protection wherever they are based in Europe.
EIOPA is responsible for ensuring effective and consistent supervision.
Consistent supervisory practices aim indeed at further improving the functioning of the internal market and to the level playing field, avoiding supervisory arbitrage. Supervisory convergence is also needed for the supervision of emerging risks and properly address future challenges.
To achieve its objective in the area of supervisory convergence, EIOPA has developed - depending on the issue and risks at stake - different tools which can be grouped in three building blocks: