AGIS working to strengthen insurance authority

Guatemala's insurance association is working to give the insurance regulatory agency the same weight and importance as its counterpart for the banking industry, insurance association AGIS chairman Alejandro Beltranena told BNamericas. "We are working to create the framework so that [the insurance authority] is stronger and more specialized," Beltranena said. The banking authority SIB is currently responsible for overseeing the banking and insurance industries. While the SIB's banking office has its own commissioner or "intendente", the insurance arm does not have an executive of similar stature and must share the audit and research departments with the banking office. AGIS is lobbying the Junta Monetaria - a policy making body with representatives from AGIS, the banking association, congress and the government - to create a stronger insurance authority in the medium-term. "We're working to get it [as soon as possible]. It's important that the insurance authority have a clear [organizational] structure. Just as there is a banking authority there should be an agency with its own structure for insurance," Beltranena said. Market observers and industry players agree that while the existing insurance authority has done a good job policing the sector, more needs to be done in the area of reinsurance oversight. "Reinsurance [oversight] is more than just looking at how the contract is written, its seeing how it reflects the amount of risk taken [in certain regions of the country], the type of reinsurance, if its proportional or non proportional, and who are the reinsurers. That is where we feel the [SIB] needs to improve," said the CEO of a major insurance company.