FSA eases regulations on equity sales

The FSA is giving life companies further leeway when deciding when they have to sell equities. The falling equities markets have led to forced selling of equities in order to meet solvency requirements. The regulator has temporarily suspended all resilience tests, which are designed to ensure a life office can survive a 10% fall in equity markets. It is now at the discretion of actuaries what level of market fall is assumed. This adds to a rule change to be implemented on 1 December which will allow companies a deeper, but still prudent, discount of their future liabilities. They will be ...