The Association of Bermuda Insurers and Reinsurers (ABIR), an industry association representing Bermuda’s international insurers and reinsurers, and Insurance Ireland, the representative body for the Irish insurance sector, are urging European Union policymakers to make regulatory adjustments to the EU securitisation framework.
According to the organisations, such changes would allow proven and well-regulated insurers from jurisdictions equivalent to Solvency II to participate more fully in the EU market and help unlock capital for banks, consumers, and businesses across Europe.
In a joint industry position paper published on 8 March 2026 in Hamilton, Bermuda, the two organisations said the ongoing review of the EU securitisation framework is an important step in strengthening the bloc’s financial competitiveness.
Moyagh Murdock, Chief Executive Officer of Insurance Ireland, said the organisation welcomed the progress made so far by the European Commission. “The European Commission’s 2025 proposal of opening synthetic STS to re/insurers as protection providers, was an important and welcome step toward advancing the Savings & Investments Union. However, further progress is needed to support real market scale, as the current safeguards remain too narrow to enable a deeper, more scalable market.”
ABIR stated that a stronger securitisation market could improve the ability of banks to manage risk and support lending across Europe.
John Huff, President and Chief Executive Officer of ABIR, commented: “A well-functioning securitisation market will enable banks to manage risk efficiently, free up regulatory capital, and expand lending to households, Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SME), and long-term investment projects — often without transferring customer relationships or relying exclusively on funded capital market investors.”
Huff added: “Within this framework, unfunded credit protection provided by non-life re/insurers is a straightforward and well-established risk-transfer tool. By purchasing insurance against credit losses, banks can achieve significant risk transfer while retaining the underlying loan portfolios.”
The joint paper notes that insurers have participated in the non-Simple, Transparent, and Standardised (STS) EU synthetic securitisation market since 2018. According to ABIR and Insurance Ireland, these insurers operate under strong prudential, governance, and risk-management regimes, including Solvency II and equivalent supervisory frameworks in other jurisdictions.
While the European Commission’s proposal acknowledges the role insurers can play in STS synthetic securitisations for the first time, ABIR and Insurance Ireland state that aspects of the proposed framework could limit market participation.
They highlight the interaction of size thresholds, group recognition rules, and safeguard requirements as potential barriers for EU-authorised insurers that belong to groups headquartered in Solvency II-equivalent jurisdictions outside the EU, including Bermuda and Switzerland.
ABIR said such restrictions could narrow the pool of eligible insurers. “This unnecessary exclusion risks a severely limited pool of eligible insurers, increasing counterparty concentration risk, and weakening the crucial STS unfunded credit protection market,” Huff continued.
“This is more than mere financial technicalities, because rather than mobilising additional private capital, the proposal as currently drafted risks excluding credible insurance capacity, reducing banks risk-management options, and constraining lending, especially for core asset classes such as residential mortgages, SME loans, and long-tenor infrastructure finance – precisely what Europe needs for the development of its Savings and Investments Union (SIU).”
ABIR and Insurance Ireland also emphasised their members’ existing contributions to European markets. Insurance Ireland noted that Irish insurers paid €74 billion in claims and safeguarded €300 billion in life and pension assets in 2023. Bermuda-based reinsurers, represented by ABIR, paid approximately €24.8 billion to EU policyholders and cedants for property and casualty losses and life insurance claims between 2016 and 2020.
Huff concluded: “Insurance Ireland and ABIR jointly support targeted, proportionate clarifications to the securitisation regulatory package that preserve strong prudential safeguards while ensuring that the framework is workable in practice, reflects how insurance groups are actually supervised, and allows a sufficiently broad and competitive pool of insurers to support the EU’s real economy.”
