Omnibus II: 3 years late and 6th time lucky!

The Omnibus II directive is an amendment to the 2009 Solvency II directive. Over three years since the original draft was published on 19 January 2011, the European Parliament has voted and finally come to agreement over the final Omnibus II directive should look like. This is the 6th attempt to hold a vote on the directive, following years of strong disagreements on the details in it.

What does this mean?

The consensus reached in today’s vote at the European Parliament marks a major landmark on the route to Solvency II implementation. Now that Omnibus II has the blessings of the European Parliament, the European Commission has the task of finalising the draft rules for Solvency II. It will officially come into force the day after the European Commission publish the rules in the Official Journal.

What took so long?

Past delays have largely been attributed to disagreements in parliament over the provisions in the long-term guarantee package that is outlined in the Omnibus II directive.

Barnett Waddingham comments

It was important that this consensus was reached before the European elections in May 2014. The elections would have meant further delays as a new European Parliament would have to undergo the whole process of understanding and debating the complex and technical issues involved; leading to further delays!

Now that the Omnibus II directive has been agreed we now have a reasonable degree of confidence in Solvency II being implemented on 1 January 2016. If Solvency II implementation isn’t already high on the agenda for the Boards of insurers, then it definitely should be now.

Want to find out more?

We will continue to monitor updates and keep you informed of what is going on.