Regulator proposes 12.9% insurance fee increase as inflation bites

Wednesday 31 August 2022

Jersey's financial services watchdog is looking at putting up its fees for insurance businesses by 12.9% in response to rises in the cost of regulation.

The Jersey Financial Services Commission said the aim of the fee rise was to help the body "obtain sufficient funding to carry out our supervisory objectives and to ensure our ongoing financial resilience, we need to raise £1.134m in fees from the insurance sector in 2022."

Consultation documents released by the JFSC explained that the proposed rise was based on a number of factors.

"The Commission Law contemplates increases to fees in line with RPI, which was recorded as 7.9% in June 2022. Although the cost of regulation continues to rise well in excess of this metric, our ongoing focus on cost control means that the inflationary component of the proposed fee increase can be limited to this amount," it said.

"In additional fee rate increase of 5% is dedicated to the stabilisation of our Financial Resilience as detailed in the Business Plan and Financial Resilience Review published earlier this year.

"The combined effect of the above is that we propose a fee rate increase of 12.9% for 2022/23, comprising: Jersey RPI of 7.9%, [and] a contribution towards our financial resilience objectives of 5%."

They added: "No Civil Financial Penalties have been levied on entities in the insurance sector, which would be applied to reduce these fees."

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