NEW YEAR, NEW REPORTING REQUIREMENTS: SHAPING UP FOR PRODUCT GOVERNANCE

January is only weeks away, and while many will be considering their new year’s resolutions, preparing for a month of renewed focus on getting healthy, spending less money or travelling more, the compliance team at Arc Legal have a rather different goal.

For us, and many across the market, the beginning of 2022 marks the first in a series of impending deadlines for insurance firms to report GI value measures data and ensure that products offer fair value to customers in the target market as part of the FCA’s new General Insurance Value Measures Policy Statement.

As these deadlines loom, we at Arc Legal are ahead of the curve, having spent the past few months collating and filtering data from our broker partners and shaping it to fit the FCA’s standard templates. Our aim is to ensure that from Q1 2022, we can provide this valuable data on product performance and pricing to our capacity providers, who will in turn pass this on to the FCA.

It has not been all plain sailing, and our team has had to sift and sort through a huge volume of data from our broker partners in a variety of formats, both structured and unstructured to get them fit for the FCA’s requirements.

A challenge, and opportunities

All challenges also present opportunities. The new rules mean that we will all have to work much more closely together across the distribution chain to share information and insights on how customers are using insurance products and ensure that they are getting fair value from the cover they purchase.  We often only need to communicate when something goes “wrong”, but the new reporting requirements will see continuous dialogue and communication and greater opportunities to identify any issues or concerns before they become a problem.

This is also the first time many companies will have had such a huge volume of data in one place, in a standard format, giving them the opportunity to undertake detailed analysis of the performance of their products and identify areas of improvement quickly.

The heightened focus on value measures and reporting requirements has also led to the development of internal resources focused on compliance.  I see a cottage industry emerging in the compliance sector with a greater need for talented, diligent individuals to boost the compliance teams within businesses.

We’re ready

We’ve been working hard to get in shape for 2022 and have been pleased to work so closely with our partners to prepare for a new reporting regime.  I’m looking forward to seeing how these requirements will further shape the general insurance market.

Sean Kilbourn, Director of Business Controls and Governance, Arc Legal Assistance

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