The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) has proposed the launch of two new statistical publications on life insurance.
The proposal comes several months after new reporting requirements for the life insurance industry were implemented this year.
APRA is beginning a consultation with the life insurance industry on the first of the publications, Quarterly Life Insurance Performance, which will be based on up-to-date data collection — APRA’s previous data collection for life companies was more than 10 years old.
APRA said the new data will be more relevant and more easily analysed than previous data.
The publication will cover aggregate quarterly data on life insurers and “will enable better benchmarking across the industry and provide policyholders and the public with a more comprehensive analysis of the strength and performance of the life insurance industry.”
The publication, which will be replacing Life Insurance Trends, is tentatively scheduled for release in early 2009.
The second publication, Half-yearly Life Insurance Bulletin, is to provide a “detailed snapshot for a 12-month reference period” and will include “high-level information for individual life insurers”.
APRA said it is also considering new publications for the friendly society industry, but they are yet to determine their format and frequency.
APRA is inviting comment from interested parties on the draft of publication of Quarterly Life Insurance Performance, which is available from the APRA website, until 10 December.
Consultations on Half-yearly Life Insurance Bulletin and the proposed friendly society publications are set to commence in early 2009.
