Handing over of SRO Functions to Insurance Authority (IA)
We are given to understand that the formal transition (D-Day) to the Direct Licensing Regime of the IA will take place in the last week of September, subject to the required commencement notice to be published in the Gazette.
With confirmation of the D-Day by the IA, we are moving full steam ahead with the transitional arrangement. So far, we have held five working group meetings with IA on issues relating to licensing, disciplinary procedures and handing over of outstanding complaint cases. Relevant data from the existing insurance agents register was transferred to the IA for testing of their new IT system. A tripartite meeting with the Insurance Appeal Tribunal of Financial Services and the Treasury Bureau and IA was also held to discuss the handover of appeal cases.
More details on the transitional arrangement will be made available in the coming months. Meanwhile, we are urging the IA to update us on various consultation results and release the finalised guidelines as soon as possible. This is needed to allow sufficient time for all stakeholders to get well prepared for a smooth, seamless migration to the new regulatory framework.
While we are busy with all these, we are discharging to the best of our ability our SRO duty of administering the licensing and code of conduct of close to 95,000 intermediaries. Here we want to express our gratitude and appreciation to the Insurance Agents Registration Board chaired by Mr Robert Pang SC for their tremendous support and hard work.
The Food and Health Bureau (FHB) held a kick-off ceremony on 29 March 2019 to announce the official launch of VHIS and the certified VHIS Providers / plans.
The HKFI has been actively assisting FHB to come up with a viable VHIS framework over the past five years. During the process, our specialists provided professional input to the FHB in framing the scheme’s governance, structure and modus operandi and fine tuning its parameters for more comprehensive protection for policyholders. Specifically, we played an instrumental role in assisting FHB in devising the standardised policy terms and conditions, which greatly enhanced the transparency of VHIS products. Going forward, HKFI will work with Insurance Complaints Bureau to resolve any disputes relating to VHIS in a fair and transparent manner. We will also continue to focus on public education and intermediary training on VHIS. In this connection, more than 11,000 registered persons have attended the VHIS in-house and public class training. If you also want to provide such CPD training for your agents / broker / staff on VHIS, please contact our Training Unit at 2861 9333.
Insurance Fraud Prevention Claims Database (IFPCD)
Following the formation of the IFPCD Executive Committee (ExCom) in mid-February, the first AntiFraud Committee (AFC) meeting took place last week for motor line of business (LoB). Thanks to the professional support of elite claim specialists, we came up with a set of practical procedures to facilitate data transfer and analytics.
Going forward, an AFC will be established for each LoB to spearhead and provide expertise to improve the fraud detection capability of the IFPCD.
The project team stands ready to support insurers in whatever way it is needed. Contact us at 2861 9392 or claimsDB@hkfi.org.hk for enquiries or assistance.
Risk-Based Capital Framework (RBC)
Based on the valuable feedback from our Task Forces and Member Companies on the Second Quantitative Impact Study (QIS 2), we concluded that QIS 2 was developed on a very conservative basis. We are also of the opinion that it would be crucial to provide and deploy a more realistic and economic basis for the next phase of RBC development including Enterprise Risk Management and Own Risk and Solvency Assessment. In this regard, we conveyed in very clear terms our position to the IA on the necessity of moderation before the start of QIS 3 and are awaiting their feedback.
