EditEIOPA’s three-year cover-up: why EU’s insurance watchdog failed its own standards
The long-hidden report on Euroins Romania finally sees the light of day - revealing serious flaws in data quality, due process and impartiality
On 28 March EIOPA, Europe’s insurance regulator, published its “Assessment of the Gross-to-net Technical Provision of Euroins Romania.” The report completed in March 2023 had been kept ‘under wraps’ for three years. Efforts by MEPs to access this report met a stone wall. Parliamentary questions about the report tabled by MEPs from across the political spectrum received responses that were defensive, evasive, misleading, and disingenuous. At one point the Commission admitted that the EIOPA report had not been “shared” with it. When EIOPA finally published its long-hidden report it did so quietly – no press release and no explanation for the extraordinary three-year delay. Publication of the report raises more questions than answers, writes Dick Roche.
EUalive’s columnist Dick Roche is a former Irish Minister of State for European Affairs. His columns can be found here.
A dispute rooted in refusal to rescue a failing rival
In 2019 Romania’s financial supervisor, the ASF, pressured Euroins Romania – then a major player in the competitive motor third-party liability (MTPL) market – to acquire the collapsing City Insurance. City was Romania’s largest auto insurer at the time. Euroins refused. From that moment, relations soured.
In early 2023, following changes in supervisory practices introduced by ASF which Euroins viewed as discriminatory, the company asked EIOPA to appoint an independent expert team under its oversight to review what was happening. The request from Euroins was supported by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. The Bulgarian financial regulator also flagged concerns about ASF.
EIOPA decided to conduct a closed, internal assessment. Euroins was excluded from the process entirely. It was not invited to submit data or participate in the process.
EIOPA’s assessment concludes that as of 30 September 2022 Euroins Romania faced a massive deficiency in its net best estimate for MTPL liabilities – between €550 million and €581 million. This contrasts sharply with the results of ASF’s previous three annual reviews of Euroins. It even clashes with a February 2023 ASF control report that cited different shortfall numbers.
The garbage in, garbage out principle
In any analysis where data that is flawed, incomplete, outdated, or biased or where biased assumptions are included results are likely to be misleading or worthless. Regardless of how sophisticated the approach or the good intentions of those performing the analysis, the ‘garbage in garbage out principle’ applies.
The Executive Summary of EIOPA’s report notes that the assessment was performed “over data reported by Euroins Romania to the ASF. EIOPA had no access to the ASF’s permanent control report and adjustments, in order to ensure full objectivity and impartiality”.
There is no explanation as to why EIOPA chose to confine itself solely to ASF for data. At a minimum this arrangement carried the risk of biased data.
A basic read-through of EIOPA’s report raises two very significant ‘red flags. The first relates to fines associated with delays in settling insurance claims and the second relates to reinsurance contracts.
Outdated claims data
In Romania severe penalties are imposed where insurance claims are not settled within 30 days. Delayed claims attract a penalty charge of 0.02% per day – the equivalent of 73% per annum.
From 2020 Euroins Romania rapidly accelerated the rate of insurance settlements. In 2021, the company took an average of 35 days to settle a claim. By the Spring of 2023 the average claim was being settled in 7 days. This improvement in the speed of settlement meant that by 2023 the number of outstanding claims on the company’s books was lower than had been the norm previously. The data used by EIOPA do not reflect the improvement. Consequently, this very significant decline in potential penalties from outstanding claims is not reflected in EIOPA’s analysis, missing potential savings of tens of millions of euros – a very significant failure.
Treatment of reinsurance / quota share contracts
Like most insurance companies across the EU, Euroins Romania operated quota share contracts, a type of proportional reinsurance, aimed at mitigating risk. The reinsurance arrangements the company had in place in 2023 when ASF acted against it had been in operation for several years. The validity of the Euroins reinsurance contracts were confirmed by a specific exercise carried out by ASF and EIOPA in 2021.
Days before launching its move against Euroins Romania ASF radically altered its position on reinsurance. It decided that quota share contracts no longer satisfied its requirements – essentially rewriting the rules. The reasons for this reversal are unclear. The possibility that the decision was simply part of the process to ‘oust’ Euroins cannot be dismissed, the evidence points in that direction. Prior to February 2023 ASF had not flagged any concerns about quota share. It is not clear whether ASF has applied restrictions on quota share contracts to any insurance provider other than Euroins.
When ASF announced the changes, Euroins Romania took immediate steps to revise reinsurance arrangements to meet the new ASF policy. As an immediate first step Euroins Romania and its parent Euroins Insurance Group (EIG) decided to place a new reinsurance contract with its own group reinsurer with the intention of transferring the risk to a leading international panel of reinsurers within one month. These efforts had no impact on ASF. Euroins’ efforts to change its reinsurance position do not seem to have been ‘shared’ with EIOPA by ASF.
These radical and rapid policy changes by ASF were carried into EIOPA’s analysis without any discussion of their impact, seriously affecting its assessment of Euroins Romania and undervaluing its assets using existing EU norms by between EUR 250 and EUR 300 million.
Evidence that questions EIOPA’s analysis and other real world costs
Three years have passed since Euroins Romania’s license was revoked. In that time thousands of claims against policies issued by the company have been settled through Romania’s Insurance Guarantee Fund. Settlements made to date align closely with projections made by Euroins Romania in 2023 rather than with EIOPA’s dire assessments.
ASF’s decision to ‘kill off’ Euroins Romania came with real world costs that EIOPA’s analysis does not feature. Policyholders faced disruption, employees lost jobs, shareholders suffered losses, and the already strained Romanian guarantee fund took another hit. Reduced competition in the MTPL market contributed to higher premiums, prompting Romania to impose price caps that sit uneasily with EU single-market rules.
The financial fallout continues. In 2024, Euroins launched ICSID arbitration against Romania, seeking over €500 million in damages. The case is advancing, with a potential resolution late next year.
Time for accountability
EIOPA exists to promote consistent, high-quality supervision and to protect the single market. In the Euroins Romania case, it appears to have done the opposite. An alternative course was available to EIOPA which, if taken would have avoided the real-world costs that continue to mount.
Europe’s insurance sector – and European citizens – deserve better. The European Parliament, the Commission, and national governments should now demand a full, independent review of how EIOPA handled this matter.
The role played by Romania’s ASF, an agency with a very checkered history, needs to be part of that review.
The quiet upload of a three-year-old report does not close the file. It opens a necessary debate: who guards the guardians when Europe’s watchdog gets it wrong?
Caption: The modern tall building on the left hosts EIOPA, the European Insurance and Occupational Authority, in Frankfurt.
Updated: April 14, 2026 - 12:35
