Steering solvency

Austria's Financial Market Authority (FMA) maintains a fairly conservative approach to the supervision of insurance firms, which has shielded many of them from the worst effects of the financial crisis. But with Solvency II around the corner, how far is Austrian insurance regulation from a truly risk-based model? Blake evans-pritchard reports

Life & Pensions: How is the Austrian pensions sector related to life insurance?

Harald Gossl, head of actuarial issues and models at the FMA: We have a system of pension institutions - the so-called 'Pensionskassen' - which is not really comparable to pension funds in the UK or in the Netherlands. We have about 500,000 members and 40,000 beneficiaries covered by the system. The system provides very little - no more than 10% - of the old-age income of Austrian society. Two years ago, I would have