Currently, Hong Kong’s Commissioner of Insurance via the Insurance Authority grants approval to both the Hong Kong Confederation of Insurance Brokers (HKCIB) and the Professional Insurance Brokers’ Association (PIBA) to conduct oversight and self-regulation of insurance brokers and agents in Hong Kong.  Latitude Brokers is a member of the HKCIB.

For some time now, the Insurance Authority has been in consultation in order to create more direct regulatory oversight and, as of 10 July 2015, LegCo has passed the Insurance Companies (Amendment) Bill 2014.  This creates a ‘tentative’ timeline for the changes and dissolution of the HKCIB and PIBA, with those duties ultimately to be undertaken by the newly created Independent Insurance Authority.

The timeline allows for the Independent Insurance Authority to be set up and commence oversight in stages, with the first stage being the prudential and conduct regulation of insurers and anti-money laundering regulatory regime by no later than 10 October 2016.

After that, the IIA will finally take over all regulatory roles by no later than 10 June 2017 although in reality we would expect the changes to be completed prior to that final deadline.

We welcome the change so that all brokers and agents are subject to the same oversight and regulations in Hong Kong.  We hope the new IIA will enhance the regulations currently in place and bring Hong Kong closer to the regulatory environment in other major insurance centres, including London and Singapore.   We believe that those environments promote best practices, including contract certainty and transparency which benefits both us as well as our clients.

At the same time, we welcome a more standardized framework for placing and managing risks in a global marketplace to improve efficiency but retain the highest levels of regulatory oversight for our business.

Here is a full copy of the HKCIB announcement.  Please contact us should you wish to know more.