The Insurance Recovery and Resolution Directive (IRRD) is currently the subject of negotiations in the European Council and the European Parliament. The text aims to lay down harmonized rules across the European Union (EU) for pre-emptive recovery planning and procedures for resolution, meaning an orderly exit of failed undertakings from the market. Under the new regulation, the envisioned resolution authorities will have far-reaching powers ranging from removing current management to transferring insurance portfolios, writing down liabilities, staying payments to creditors, and sending insurers into court-supervised insolvency procedures. While it is difficult to object to the idea that it is better to have insurance professionals deal with the fallout of an insurance failure, several dilemmas arise. The European Commission opted for a maximum harmonization directive which some Member States oppose. The interaction between the measures that national supervisory authorities can take under Solvency II and the measures of the resolution authorities is not sufficiently delineated. In the absence of harmonized rules on insurance guarantee schemes, the question of financing resolution proceedings is mainly in the hands of the Member States, except for the limitation on the use of public funds. And last but not least, there is the ever-recurring problem of groups and cooperation between different authorities in case an insurance group operating in several jurisdictions fails. A closer examination of the text of the new directive shows that it follows the banking counterpart too closely and does not address insurance specifics with sufficient clarity.
