Good morning, Professor Gründl, all

Together with the International Center for Insurance Regulation (ICIR), it is my great pleasure to welcome you to this year's Global Insurance Supervision conference.

First, let me start by giving thanks to those who have made today happen.

• Professor Dr Helmut Gründl and colleagues from the International Center for Insurance Regulation - we really appreciate the ongoing cooperation that we have with you.
• A warm thanks to all of our distinguished speakers, panellists and moderators.
• I should also mention my own colleagues at EIOPA for their work in helping to bring this conference together.
• And finally, thanks to all of you in this room for making the journey to join us here in Frankfurt. I know that some of you have come a long way and your presence is valued.

This year's conference is all about resilience. How we bounce back or recover from difficulties or shocks.

Resilience takes many forms.

At a personal level, we might be talking about having a cushion of savings to take care of a broken boiler or car repairs or to get through a period of unemployment.

For businesses, it might be about being able to recover from a cyber-attack without losing business or customer trust.

For the financial sector as a whole, it could be about robustness in the face of a crisis.

And then there is society. The speed at which communities and society can rebound for example from the devastating effects of forest fires or flooding is of paramount importance.

And, goodness, do we need to be resilient now.

Globally, we are facing a series of challenges: a climate emergency, geopolitical tensions, cyber-attacks, new political directions. It seems like the whole of society is in a permanent state of crisis, having to react, having to adapt.

But there is a light at the end of the tunnel. Two lights in fact.

The first is insurance.

At human level, we know why people buy insurance. It offers protection and peace of mind. But of course, its value is much greater. It supports economies and societies to function, to focus. Moreover, the vast sums that people invest through premiums can fuel investments in infrastructure, technology, defence and green projects and it is these investments that will help societies overcome or rebound from some of the challenges we face.

The second light is us. Insurance supervisors. And more specifically the global community of insurance supervisors. For I truly believe that together we are greater than the sum of our parts, be it as EU countries or beyond.

Our mandates may vary - from prudential oversight to conduct regulation, from financial literacy to promoting our industry - but between us we have an impact on stability, on balance, on long term views.

We can impact the way that insurance sector operates, enabling it to thrive responsibility. We make sure that frameworks are relevant and function effectively, yet proportionately, so that the financial system remains stable and policyholders do not suffer detriment.

And - most importantly of all - we care about resilience.

I would even say that we do more than care about resilience, we invest in resilience.

Incentivising investments in infrastructure, ensuring insurers' own risk is accounted for, making sure that insurance remains available and affordable to consumers and communities at risk- these are just some of the ways that insurance supervisors strengthen resilience.

And as you can see from today's agenda, resilience runs across so many areas of our work.

Our first panel takes the broad view, examining resilience from the perspective of insurance supervisors from different areas. This is one example of the power of community: each of us on the panel operates in different jurisdictions but we face the same issues, and we can learn from each other's approaches.

Later, we will also be hearing the European Commission, to provide the EU's perspective on global standards and resilience.

As we talk about different approaches, we may have differing views. But fundamentally, we have the same goal in mind: To create the long-term conditions for an insurance ecosystem that protects policyholders, supports both economic growth and stability, and is agile enough to adapt to our changing environment.

And this is a second example of the power of community: to engage in dialogue, so that we can foster convergence. Because we all know that we cannot achieve our goals if we operate in isolation.

I should say that, in this context, convergence should not be taken as an end state where all adopt the view or approach of one, it should not be seen as a one size that has to fit all.

No, it's a process. A continuous process of listening, learning and moving together -step by step - to a more harmonized approach while still recognizing local specificities. The goal being better understanding, more comparability and higher efficiency, while respecting regional practices and needs.

From this bird's-eye international perspective, we are zooming in to the individual and asking how academics, insurers and insurance supervisors can help to strengthen the financial health of individuals.

Personal resilience and well-developed financial health are at the heart of a stable financial system.

Without insurance policies, people would struggle to get back on their feet after illnesses, accidents or natural catastrophes. Without occupational or private pensions, the burden on the state to provide in old age would be even greater. Left unchecked, these protection gaps can have a severe impact on the economic health of our society.

So as supervisors, we have to ask what we can do to make sure that people have access to the insurance policies they need to protect themselves from cyber risks? And how do we avoid that consumers are left unsure that they are protected against certain natural disasters or even left with the illusion that they are protected, when they are not.

And here we have the third example of the power of community: Helping - or encouraging - people to help themselves. For example, what can be done to encourage people to save differently, instead of leaving their savings to languish in deposits or savings accounts with low interest rates.

This is certainly the case in the European Union, where citizens save at three times the rate as Americans, but hold a third of those savings in the types of accounts I just mentioned.

Several steps need to be considered to achieve better outcomes. First, we should consider the types of savings products on offer.

For me, this means offering a broader range of savings products. I am talking here about simple, transparent and reliable products that offer value for money and that are suitable for long-term savings.

These are the types of products that will help close savings gaps.

Second, people need the confidence to save differently and here, I believe trust and value for money are vital.

This means looking at the product lifecycle and ensuring that consumer needs are considered at all stages. It means looking at the advice that people receive - both the quality of the advice and how they receive it. It means paying particular attention to financial inclusion. And it means establishing methodologies to enable supervisors to assess value for money.

These are all areas that EIOPA is looking at, but so are supervisory authorities around the world, contributing to confidence, trust and knowledge that people need to make informed decisions about their long-term financial health. And so I look forward to the insight the panellists will share with us.

And this brings me to the next topic, operational resilience. It is just as important as personal resilience and high on the agenda of insurers and supervisors alike. Cyber risk, supply chain fragility, and third-party dependencies are testing our systems in new ways.

Given the increasing severity of cyber risk, this is clearly an area we are all working on, including at IAIS level.

The Digital Operational Resilience Act, or DORA - is one approach - the European approach, involving direct supervision of critical third-party providers, or CTTPs. For EIOPA, it is very much a joint approach as we work together with our sister agencies - the EBA and ESMA on its implementation.

This is yet another area where we can all learn from each other and, indeed, from today's exchange.

From our own supervisory experience, we know that dialogue and consultation is at the heart of good supervision, so dialogue is an important component of our we implement DORA - from workshops to answer questions, to oversight activities, it is important that all stakeholders understand the operating model, the risks and controls in place.

And that is the fourth example of the power of community: Hearing a wide range of views and consulting outside of the supervisory community. What makes sense to us, might not be practical for the people who have to implement our proposals. We need to hear from them - and we need to hear from them early.

Today, we are also addressing the digital transformation of the insurance sector.

And while we might be at different levels of digital maturity, one thing we can all agree on is that the rapid pace of technological advances keeps us all on our toes, reshaping business models, how insurers operate and how supervisors supervise.

We all have to contend with how we embrace advances, while mitigating the risks, so that innovation is responsible and consumers remain protected.

And how do we do that? Of course, regulation and supervision play an important role.

Now, we are each rapidly adapting our supervisory processes to take into account new technology, starting with artificial Intelligence.

In Europe, we now have the AI Act.

This is the first of its kind - a comprehensive framework establishing a risk-based AI classification system - ensuring that AI use is analysed and classified according to the risk posed to users across the entire economy.

And yes, this will have an impact on the insurance sector, since AI systems used for risk assessment and pricing in life and health insurance are deemed as high-risk.

Yet, most of what is required is actually not new, it was and is already there in Solvency II and IDD.

Still new regulation combined with existing requirements could lead to uncertainty on what needs to be implemented and how. This is one reason why EIOPA has recently published an Opinion on the key principles and requirements in insurance-sector legislation for the use and supervision of AI systems. To provide clarity to especially supervisors on how to interpret these provisions in insurance-sector legislation in the context of the AI Act, without adding to the regulation itself.

EIOPA is not alone in providing clarification to the supervisory community and industry. Earlier in the summer, the IAIS published its own Application Paper on the supervision of artificial intelligence, supporting supervisors when applying the existing Insurance Core Principles to promote appropriate and globally consistent oversight of the use of AI within the insurance sector.

This goes back to the point I made earlier - about convergence - trying to reach a harmonised approach on the basis of principle based standards while respecting local or regional specificities.

It is this type of supervisory exchange that can enable innovation to flourish rather than be stifled. Stick to the principle-based standards, but explain and share supervisory practices.

As a supervisory community, this is something that we all strive for: an ecosystem that allows innovation not just to thrive, but to thrive responsibly.

AI, digitalisation, innovation - we need them to be a force for good. To empower people, to foster inclusion, to uphold trust.

And effective supervision is the key to achieving the crucial balance: regulation where necessary, innovation where possible, and trust throughout the system. And this is something that all of us here are working towards.

In closing, let me sum up.

The challenges that we - as individuals and as a society - face today are many. But we shouldn't underestimate the strength of our cooperation and the power of our community.

I cannot reinforce this point enough.

As a community, working together, we have the power to shape how we respond to challenges and, dare I say it, crises. And, in doing so, we protect not just insurers and policyholders, but also the broader social and economic fabric of our society. In other words, we have the power to strengthen resilience, for individuals, communities, businesses and societies.

In my speech today, I have highlighted four areas where the power of our community serves us better than our ability as individuals:

• We may come from different jurisdictions, but the challenges we face are the same.
• Engaging in dialogue with each other helps us foster convergence. Convergence that is built on evidence, experience and respect for regional specificities and needs.
• We can use our collective power and experience to nudge people, policymakers, governments to do things differently.
• And we can do so while adopting a broad consultative approach that will lead to more efficient and effective supervision.

And here, I would like to add one more example of the power of our community. One that we can do more to develop, especially today.

I would say that in the face of all the change that we dealing with - whether digital, geopolitical, or economic - as supervisors, we are nearly always reactive. (And no, that's not the power I am referring to...)

But given the pace of change that we face, we need to react faster.

And this is the fifth power of community: how we can accelerate the speed of our reactions.

And we can only do that if we continue to meet, continue to talk, to learn from each other, to challenge each other.

You know in Europe, one of our values, one of our strengths is that we are United in Diversity. This means that we have almost 70 years of living practice of talking, listening, learning from each other. Finding ways of working together in a Single Market, in 27 states with their own specificities.

That is the power of our community.

And I think that we can all say that in the world that we live in today - a risk-driven world, where resilience is paramount - acting as a supervisory community will benefit us all.

So, on that note, let me say once again, welcome. I hope you enjoy your day here and your time in Frankfurt.