Belgium Financial Services and Markets Authority (FSMA) has published its 2024 Annual Report, with a strong focus on the “value for money” of financial products, and used a related webinar to outline supervisory action on insurance product pricing and to present a new cost comparison tool for investment funds. It also released a new online, topic-based version of the annual report designed to make the material easier to navigate. On insurance, the FSMA reported completing 234 value-for-money surveys across life (notably class 23 products, including many pension products), outstanding balance insurance and a broad range of non-life lines. The review approach assessed the reduction in yield (RIY) for life products and claims ratios for non-life products; where a high RIY or low claims ratio could not be sufficiently justified, insurers were asked to take measures to restore value for money. In its 2023–2024 overview, the FSMA recorded 78 cases where distribution was halted and 141 where costs were lowered; for 137 class 23 products, it reported an average RIY reduction of 0.64%, resulting in higher capital pay-outs to consumers. For funds, the new online tool is intended to help individual investors model the impact of costs on expected returns and compare a fund’s costs with average costs for funds with a comparable investment policy, complementing cost information already available in key information documents and FSMA-approved marketing communications. The webinar presentation is available alongside the new online report tool.

Original source View in tracker