The latest audits of the statements of insurers for the second half of 2020 showed that 46 of them violate the standards, and 15 did not submit financial statements, while for a long time they had difficulties with complying with the mandatory standards, the deputy governor of the National Bank of Ukraine (NBU), Yaroslav Matuzka, wrote in the author’s column of the Ekonomichna Pravda edition, according to the website of the central bank.
“We have studied in detail the circumstances of these violations. They are not caused by the increased requirements of the regulator. Most of the violations are deliberate actions of the management of insurance companies related to the withdrawal of eligible assets,” he stressed.
Among the main reasons for the problematic state of the companies, Matuzka named excessive expenses that have no economic justification, the exchange of highly liquid assets – government bonds for the corporate rights of unknown LLCs, which clearly have no corresponding value and will not be sold after that for the same amount. In addition, he named the purchase of incomprehensible securities or the order of services not related to insurance activities, the conclusion of reinsurance contracts, in which the amount of possible payments is less than the amount of insurance premiums paid for such reinsurance.
Another reason for violations is the transfer of funds from insurance reserves as collateral for loans to shareholders, or even those who are clearly not related to the insurer at all. There are a lot of such examples, the banker says.
At the same time, he noted the presence of a separate category of insurers – seekers of quick money.
“Their business models are based on the MLM (multilevel marketing) principle – came, saw, conquered, disappeared. Insurance indemnities in such business models are usually paid from the insurance premiums of new contracts. So to speak, just-in-time,” he said.
In his opinion, this is happening because insurers pursue a rash policy of agency fees in order to enter the market and quickly take a niche, taking it from someone else. First of all, clients suffer from this, who after some time end up with nothing with their insured events, because when the volumes of the insurer fall and it can no longer bear such costs even just-in-time.
