The Audit of Solvency II Information

Gert-Jan Heuvelink and Albert Zoon

Insurance undertakings that are subject to the Solvency II requirements have to make Solvency II information public. This gives rise to the question of whether this information should be audited in order to provide external users’ comfort on the information. Also, local supervisors might want to use independent auditors’ opinions on the Solvency II information in their supervisory processes. At this point in time, no specific requirements in respect of this subject have been published. Solvency information is often also disclosed in the financial statements. Whereas well-informed supervisors could assess the correctness of the information themselves, this is not possible for the general public using financial statements and solvency reports. To ensure that the general public receives reliable information, the financial statements are subject to independent audit and, hence, in this respect, so are the included solvency disclosures. This chapter analyses the potential audit requirements to which this audit approach would lead.

A DIVERSE PRACTICE EXISTS IN THE CURRENT FRAMEWORK

According to our experience in the European Union, under the current Solvency I regulations the