The numbers insurers publish — and the ones they don’t

European insurers disclose an extraordinary amount of information.

Solvency II has created one of the richest public datasets available on any group of institutional investors. Balance sheets, investment exposures, capital requirements and solvency positions can be compared across hundreds of companies.

The apparent precision is deceptive.

The same economic exposure can appear in different reporting categories. Investment funds obscure their underlying assets. Group and solo disclosures overlap. Unit-linked portfolios require separate treatment. National reporting practices and company structures complicate comparisons further.

Narrative SFCRs add another layer. They often contain information unavailable in standardised templates: hedging policies, strategic participations, investment governance, outsourcing arrangements and explanations of year-on-year changes.

But disclosure is uneven. One insurer may explain a movement in detail while another reports only the required figures.

This makes insurance data unusually rich and unusually easy to misuse.

The solution is not to discard the regulatory data. It is to understand its boundaries.

The most interesting information often lies precisely where the standardised numbers stop being standard.

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Dutch pension reform: three years on, what actually changed?

Solvency II: Europe is rewriting the rules for long-term capital

What does it cost in 2026 to manage €100bn of insurance assets?

Private assets have become ordinary insurance assets