GFIA responds to IAIS paper on supervising diversity, equity and inclusion

The Global Federation of Insurance Associations (GFIA) has published its response to a consultation by the International Association of Insurance Supervisors (IAIS) on its draft application paper, ‘Supervising diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) – the governance, risk management and culture perspective’.

The GFIA said that it stresses the importance of ensuring that any new requirements on DEI are not redundant nor overlapping with existing regulations and standards, given they are often addressed by a range of other governmental and regulatory policies.

GFIA further welcomed the IAIS’ recognition that DEI should be understood in the local context, given the significant legal, cultural and historical differences that exist, and so there is no one-size-fits all solution. In addition, the federation stresses the importance of proportionality. GFIA emphasises that DEI reflects the organisation size and type, and subsequently each company will have a different ‘DEI journey’.

Besides these points, GFIA also underlines:

• the importance of sharing best practice guidance on DEI;

• it does not endorse DEI washing and rather agrees that strategies, pledges, targets, and other statements on DEI should be supported with measures that hold the firms accountable;

• that DEI should be a collective responsibility across each organisation;

• that the collection of an insurers data should be reasonable in scope, not too intrusive, and treated in strictest confidence.

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