Region Must Improve Insurance Regulatory System – Roper

Acting Executive Director of the Financial Services Commission (FSC), George Roper, has called on Caribbean insurance regulators to move quickly to improve the regulatory system across the region.
Mr. Roper, who was addressing the opening of the Caribbean Association of Insurance Regulators Conference in Montego Bay, St. James yesterday (Dec. 4), expressed support for views articulated recently by Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh, and a senior representative of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), blaming the current financial crisis on the failure of the regulatory and supervisory mechanisms within the financial sector worldwide. He said that there is now a proposal being put forward for a global regulatory body to be established.
“In light of the turmoil in the global market…we as fellow Caribbean regulators should be reminded of the urgency to improve our regulatory framework in our individual countries and across the region,” he stated.
“There is a growing need for us, insurance supervisors, to co-operate with each other. We need to establish principles for co-operation amongst ourselves in the supervision of cross border insurance operations within the Caribbean,” Mr. Roper added, noting that increased supervision would ensure efficient, fair, safe and stable insurance markets for the benefit and protection of policyholders.
He expressed the hope that the conference will assist the regional regulators to build on, and deepen existing foundations for a vibrant, efficient, effective and ethical financial market.
Meanwhile, Minister without portfolio in the Ministry of Finance and the Public Service, Senator Don Wehby, in a statement provided to conference participants, said that financial services in general and insurance in particular, are important to the economic development of the country.
Senator Wehby, in his statement, said that the fact that three of the six life insurers and six of the 12 non-life insurers in Jamaica, have operations in other Caribbean countries, underscores the need for the provision of “world-class regulators” and co-operation across borders.
He also called for collaboration between Government departments, with a view to creating a regulatory framework that is facilitative.
The two-day conference, which concludes today (Dec. 5), is sponsored by the FSC, the Caribbean Regional Technical Assistance Centre (CARTAC) and the World Bank, under the theme: ‘Preparing for the unexpected: brainstorming risks faced by insurance supervisors’.