[Opinion] Comedy of errors at the RBNZ

The insurance regulation team at the RBNZ have done little to enhance the reputation of the bank over the past two years.

The drama started in 2021 when the RBNZ decided to issue a new solvency standard for insurance companies, replacing the previous standards for life and general insurance respectively.

Some changes were required because the accounting standard for insurance reporting, IFRS 4, was being replaced with a new Standard, IFRS 17, from 1 January 2023.  The RBNZ decided that at the same time it would combine the existing Life and Solvency standards into a single Standard.

Because the two industries are so different, producing a single merged Standard actually creates significant technical difficulties.  However, the first exposure draft of the proposed new Standard was so full of errors (including many drafting errors) it clearly had not been subject to a thorough review prior to being published.