The Mauritius Financial Services Commission has issued amendments to the Captive Insurance (Captive Insurance Business) Rules 2024 that introduce IFRS 17-aligned concepts for measuring underwriting liabilities and maintaining separate accounts, revise the definition of available capital, and replace the capital calculation schedule. The package also adds explicit substance requirements for captives’ core income generating activities. The amendments add new definitions including best-estimate assumptions, contractual service margin, fulfilment cash flows, risk adjustment, liabilities for remaining coverage and liabilities for incurred claims, and clarify that insurance contracts include reinsurance contracts. Available capital now consists of shares issued and paid up, share premium, retained earnings, reserves and may include the contractual service margin. Captive insurers must make adequate technical provisions for underwriting liabilities covering both liabilities for remaining coverage and liabilities for incurred claims, and required investigations must include valuation of both categories; reporting is expanded to include methodology and assumptions for fulfilment cash flows, disclosure of the confidence level used for the risk adjustment or an equivalent confidence level where another technique is used, and information on yield curves used to discount certain cash flows. Separate accounts must be maintained in compliance with IFRS 17, accurately reflecting contractual service margin, fulfilment cash flows and risk adjustment for each class of insurance business, and a new rule requires an adequate number of suitably qualified people (directly or via an insurance manager) and minimum expenditure proportionate to activity levels. The replacement schedule sets asset capital factors by asset type (ranging from 0% for specified cash and short-dated receivables to 100% for intangibles and certain related-party loans), defines underwriting capital as 10% of the higher of specified premium and claims/expense-based measures after adjustments for reinsurance with acceptable ratings, and updates acceptable credit rating thresholds by captive type. The amendments come into operation on 29 September 2025.
Mauritius Financial Services Commission 2025-09-16
Mauritius Financial Services Commission amends captive insurance rules to embed IFRS 17 measures, revise capital calculations and add substance requirements
The Mauritius Financial Services Commission has amended the Captive Insurance (Captive Insurance Business) Rules 2024 to align with IFRS 17, revising definitions and capital calculations, and introducing explicit substance requirements for core income-generating activities. Key changes include new definitions for insurance contracts, updated available capital components, and expanded reporting requirements. Effective 29 September 2025, the amendments also mandate separate accounts for each insurance class and set asset capital factors by asset type.