Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2015/35Show full title

SECTION 2 U.K. Data quality

Article 19 U.K. Data used in the calculation of technical provisions

1. Data used in the calculation of the technical provisions shall only be considered to be complete for the purpose of Article 82 of Directive 2009/138/EC where all of the following conditions are met:

(a) the data include sufficient historical information to assess the characteristics of the underlying risks and to identify trends in the risks;

(b) the data are available for each of the relevant homogeneous risk groups used in the calculation of the technical provisions and no relevant data is excluded from being used in the calculation of the technical provisions without justification.

2. Data used in the calculation of the technical provisions shall only be considered to be accurate for the purpose of Article 82 of Directive 2009/138/EC where all of the following conditions are met:

(a) the data are free from material errors;

(b) data from different time periods used for the same estimation are consistent;

(c) the data are recorded in a timely manner and consistently over time.

3. Data used in the calculation of the technical provisions shall only be considered to be appropriate for the purpose of Article 82 of Directive 2009/138/EC where all of the following conditions are met:

(a) the data are consistent with the purposes for which they will be used;

(b) the amount and nature of the data ensure that the estimations made in the calculation of the technical provisions on the basis of the data do not include a material estimation error;

(c) the data are consistent with the assumptions underlying the actuarial and statistical techniques that are applied to them in the calculation of the technical provisions;

(d) the data appropriately reflect the risks to which the insurance or reinsurance undertaking is exposed with regard to its insurance and reinsurance obligations;

(e) the data were collected, processed and applied in a transparent and structured manner, based on a documented process that comprises all of the following:

(i)

the definition of criteria for the quality of data and an assessment of the quality of data, including specific qualitative and quantitative standards for different data sets;

(ii)

the use of and setting of assumptions made in the collection, processing and application of data;

(iii)

the process for carrying out data updates, including the frequency of updates and the circumstances that trigger additional updates;

(f) Insurance or reinsurance undertakings shall ensure that their data are used consistently over time in the calculation of the technical provisions.

For the purposes of point (b), an estimation error in the calculation of the technical provisions shall be considered to be material where it could influence the decision-making or the judgement of the users of the calculation result, including the supervisory authorities.

4. Insurance and reinsurance undertakings may use data from an external source provided that, in addition to fulfilling the requirements set out in paragraphs 1 to 4, all of the following requirements are met:

(a) insurance or reinsurance undertakings are able to demonstrate that the use of that data is more suitable than the use of data which are exclusively available from an internal source;

(b) insurance or reinsurance undertakings know the origin of that data and the assumptions or methodologies used to process that data;

(c) insurance or reinsurance undertakings identify any trends in that data and the variation, over time or across data, of the assumptions or methodologies in the use of that data;

(d) insurance or reinsurance undertakings are able to demonstrate that the assumptions and methodologies referred to in points (b) and (c) reflect the characteristics of the insurance or reinsurance undertaking's portfolio of insurance and reinsurance obligations.

Article 20 U.K. Limitations of data

Where data does not comply with Article 19, insurance and reinsurance undertakings shall document appropriately the limitations of the data including a description of whether and how such limitations will be remedied and of the functions within the system of governance of the insurance or reinsurance undertaking responsible for that process. The data, before adjustments to remedy limitations are made to it, shall be recorded and stored appropriately.

Article 21 U.K. Appropriate use of approximations to calculate the best estimate

Where insurance and reinsurance undertakings have insufficient data of appropriate quality to apply a reliable actuarial method, they may use appropriate approximations to calculate the best estimate provided that all of the following requirements are met:

(a)

the insufficiency of data is not due to inadequate internal processes and procedures of collecting, storing or validating data used for the valuation of technical provisions;

(b)

the insufficiency of data cannot be remedied by the use of external data;

(c)

it would not be practicable for the undertaking to adjust the data to remedy the insufficiency.