Insurance Europe

With the Savings and Investments Union (SIU) in an important implementation phase ahead of its 2027 mid-term review, Insurance Europe has published a statement setting out recommendations to help build on the progress achieved so far and maximise the SIU’s contribution to Europe’s resilience, competitiveness and growth.

At a time of heightened geopolitical uncertainty, demographic change and growing investment needs, the paper highlights the important role insurers can play in strengthening Europe’s resilience by combining protection, long-term savings and investment.

The paper welcomes the strong political momentum behind the SIU, the progress made on initiatives such as the Solvency II review, the Retail Investment Strategy and ongoing work on pensions and market integration. Looking ahead, the focus should now be on be on moving from momentum to delivery implementation and outcomes, ensuring that Europe’s savings are effectively channelled into productive long-term investment and that the benefits of the SIU are fully realised for citizens and businesses.

In this context, timely and meaningful market consultation will be important to inform the 2027 mid-term review, helping to assess progress, identify good practices and ensure that the indicators used to measure the SIU’s success accurately reflect Europe’s needs and intended impact.

To help achieve this, the paper calls for action to:

• Strengthen long-term savings and retirement adequacy, including through a workable PEPP framework, a proportionate review of the IORP II Directive and making full use of the role insurance-based savings, pension and annuity products can play in helping citizens prepare for retirement.
• Promote broader retail participation in capital markets by ensuring that initiatives such as savings and investment accounts and related labelling initiatives fully include insurers as providers, giving citizens access to a broader range of long-term savings and investment solutions. The paper also calls for practical and proportionate implementation of the Retail Investment Strategy that preserves product diversity and distribution models while supporting informed consumer decision-making.
• Support long-term investment and economic growth by improving the pipeline of investable projects, expanding public-private partnerships and maintaining stable regulatory frameworks that enable insurers to invest in infrastructure, innovation, SMEs and the green and digital transitions. Insurance Europe also supports measures to reduce market fragmentation and facilitate cross-border investment, including through the Market Integration and Supervision Package and the proposed EU Inc. regime.
• Advance simplification and competitiveness by avoiding unnecessary new regulatory burdens, streamlining existing frameworks such as the Insurance Recovery and Resolution Directive (IRRD) and the EU Taxonomy, and pursuing broader simplification efforts, for example through a Financial Services Omnibus. This will help ensure that insurers can continue to support investment, competitiveness and resilience across Europe.

European insurers manage €9.5 trillion in assets, around 70% of which are invested in Europe.

Insurance Europe looks forward to engaging constructively with policymakers and stakeholders as work on the SIU continues and the debate moves from ambition to delivery.

Read the paper:

Delivering the Savings and Investments Union: From Ambition to Impact