After a competitive RFP process and subsequent migration exercise, a large European Life Insurer is now live with the Socius iCPPI hedging platform, used to manage the ongoing administration of the Insurer’s unit-linked iCPPI business which operates across multiple European jurisdictions.

An early adopter of the iCPPI concept – a mechanism to provide unit-linked guarantees at the individual policyholder level – the Insurer has selected to migrate to the Socius platform which, amongst other benefits, will provide it with greater control and flexibility over product design and enhanced risk management capabilities.

The platform is hosted within a cloud-based infrastructure providing a highly scalable solution and allows Insurers to offload the market risk associated with such products to any number of capital market participants – a key innovation that Socius first brought to the market in 2015.

As insurers have sought to meet customer demand for investment guarantees whilst addressing their own needs for capital-efficient structures under the Solvency II framework, the iCPPI mechanism has been embraced by a number of large European Insurers, with the concept being particularly well received across Austria, Germany, Italy and Spain.

Alex Jackson, CEO of Socius, said:

“The Socius iCPPI platform has been used by Life Insurers since 2015, but this is the first time an Insurer has made the not-insignificant decision to migrate from an Investment Bank’s own proprietary hedging platform to an independent platform and we are delighted to have been at the forefront of such an industry-first event.

 

“This clearly sets a precedent and will hopefully provide other Life Insurers with the confidence to take back control of the underlying technology used to administer such data-intensive solutions. Technology has not historically been seen as a strategic tool for the Life Insurance sector, but this mindset is certainly changing. We believe that providing Insurers with the means to independently run these type of hedging solutions will prove to be a key-enabler in driving new product innovation and greater choice for the end customer.”