Reserve Bank legal powers tested

All of the country’s insurers had to be fully licensed by September 9 last year. There were 96 full licenses issued under the Insurance Prudential Supervision Act (IPSA), which came into effect in 2010.

The Act contains a range of requirements for insurers, including solvency and “fit and proper” standards, disclosure and reporting rules.

Peter Brady, Reserve Bank manager of insurance oversight, said in a speech last month that the Reserve Bank was still refining its work on supervising licensed insurers.

He said that it was expected that any potential breaches of IPSA would be revealed to the Reserve Bank immediately, with adequate information for it to determine how serious the issue was, and what the insurer was doing about it.