EIOPA Reports Outline Work Done Under EU-US Insurance Dialogue Project

The Big Data Working Group has been focusing on the increased use of large data sets (Big Data) by insurers and the use of data analytics in the insurance sector. After discussion, the Working Group has outlined the following areas for potential discussion in 2020/2021:

• The further development of artificial intelligence principles in the U.S. and EU including ethical aspects
• Regulatory review of predictive models, including but not limited to assessing transparency and explainability issues arising from the use of machine learning algorithms.
• Industry use of Big Data for fraud detection and claims settlement
• Continue monitoring developments on third-party vendors and consumer disclosure issues

The Cyber Insurance Working Group, in 2019, as a follow-up to the work done in 2018, continued discussions with a focus on the assessment of non-affirmative cyber risk and the potential for catastrophic losses; the challenges and opportunities of insuring and reinsuring cyber risk; and the availability of cyber insurance data. One of the main challenges to further development of the cyber insurance markets in the U.S. and EU relates to the limited data to appropriately assess and quantify cyber risk exposure. Against this background, themes for further elaboration may include the following:

• Discussing approaches to collect data and develop techniques supporting more sophisticated assessment of cyber risks. including potential accumulation risks (for example, scenario-based stress testing)
• Sharing U.S. and EU approaches relative to cyber incident reporting and cyber incident response best practices, including discussion of whether global initiatives could facilitate further understanding and underwriting of cyber risks
• Discussing the current role and use of risk

The Insurer Cybersecurity Working Group’s 2019 Target Outcome or deliverables included further discussions to continue to share examples and approaches to insurer cybersecurity and post-incident coordination Another outcome involved further discussions in moving forward with creating an outline or template for scenarios for an insurance supervisor-only exercise on how to coordinate a cross-border response in the event of an international cybersecurity incident. Insurance sector cybersecurity is a continuing challenge and a matter for ongoing supervisory focus in both the U.S. and EU. The Insurer Cybersecurity Working Group, therefore, recommends continuing its ongoing work in the following areas:

• Continue to share information on insurer cybersecurity and operational resilience including, for example, discussing insurance industry approaches to managing cybersecurity risk; supervisory approaches to reviewing insurers’ cybersecurity measures; the challenges of tracking cyber risks in the EU and the U.S.; preventing and managing a cross-border cyber event from both a supervisory and industry perspective; and the cybersecurity implications of insurers’ increased outsourcing to the cloud
• Complete development of an initial cybersecurity exercise template for EU and U.S. supervisors on how to coordinate a cross-border response in the event of an international cybersecurity incident
• Expand current draft scenario(s) in the template, including scenario timelines with a progression of events mimicking those likely during a real cybersecurity incident and include a list of supervisory contacts
• Develop a timeline for conducting an exercise using the template created by the working group

Related Links

• Big Data Working Group
• Cyber Insurance Market Group
• Insurer Cybersecurity Working Group

Keywords: Europe, Americas, EU, US, Insurance, Big Data, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, Cyber Risk, Cyber Insurance, EIOPA