National regulators ramp up efforts to combat low rate threat

With protracted low interest rates being arguably the biggest challenge for life insurers, national regulatory authorities are taking steps to manage the threat posed to insurers’ solvency levels and ability to meet guarantees. Louie Woodall reports

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There is a shadow hanging over Europe’s life insurers; an enduring challenge that threatens to decimate their reserves, sap their profitability and even plunge them into insolvency. This is the challenge posed by a prolonged low interest rate environment.

The European economy entered this treacherous world back in 2008, when the European Central Bank (ECB) first cut rates from 4.25% to 3.75% as part of coordinated action by the world’s central banks to buoy