The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) today announced that it will be introducing two new statistical publications on the general insurance industry over the coming year.

The first publication will provide aggregate quarterly data following the introduction of new reporting requirements from 1 July 2002. It replaces APRA’s General Insurance Trends.

APRA Member, Mr Steve Somogyi, said that the new statistical lodgement system had represented a significant volume of work for industry and for APRA.

“APRA is now in a position to provide an independent source of industry data,” he said.

The proposed launch date is the last quarter of 2004 when APRA will also release previously unpublished data. APRA is inviting comment from interested parties on the draft publication, which is available at http://www.apra.gov.au/Statistics/Quarterly-General-Insurance-Statistics.cfm, by 21 September 2004.

APRA is also developing a more comprehensive publication on a bi-annual basis that will include detailed information on individual insurers and on the industry as a whole. It will replace the Selected Statistics on the General Insurance Industry. Consultation on the publication is expected to commence early in 2005.

Mr Somogyi noted that a number of issues in relation to disclosure were raised in APRA’s discussion paper on Prudential Supervision of General Insurance - Stage II Reforms released in November 2003 and a number of submissions were received.

“These will be considered further over time and more specifically in the drafting of the second publication.”

All comments and queries regarding the proposed publications should be addressed to Peter Macris at peter.macris@apra.gov.au

The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority (APRA) is the prudential regulator of the financial services industry. It oversees banks, credit unions, building societies, general insurance and reinsurance companies, life insurance, friendly societies, and most members of the superannuation industry.APRA is funded largely by the industries that it supervises. It was established on 1 July 1998.APRA currently supervises institutions holding approximately $1.8 trillion in assets for 20 million Australian depositors, policyholders and superannuation fund members.