Irish regulator warns of post-crisis surpervisory scepticism

The financial regulator, Matthew Elderfield, has warned Irish insurers that he will be more interventionist, rather than wait for a market failure to manifest itself and then cautiously weigh up the costs and benefits of a response.

He also outlined the view that front-line supervisors should be more challenging and sceptical, and that the compensation scheme for policyholders of failed insurers needed reviewing.

Speaking to the Insurance Institute of Ireland today Mr Elderfield said: "The most fundamental shift [since the economic downturn] that I have seen is a near total repudiation of the so-called efficient markets thesis. Pre-crisis, conventional wisdom held that markets were inherently efficient and self-correcting.