The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority published today a follow-up to its approach to simplification, an update titled “EIOPA reports progress on its simplification initiatives”. The note moves beyond intentions and lists the reporting and supervisory changes that have already been put into effect, from smaller data templates to a shorter Guidelines library. For insurers already working through Solvency II reporting cycles, the practical question is how much of that workload has actually come off their desks.
Reporting Templates Shrink Across the Board
The clearest evidence sits in the numbers. EIOPA is cutting quarterly reporting templates by 26% and annual reporting templates by 30% for solo undertakings under the revised Solvency II Directive. For smaller firms, the reductions go further still, with even more substantial cuts for “small and non-complex undertakings”.
| Undertaking type | Quarterly templates | Annual templates |
|---|---|---|
| Solo undertakings | 26% fewer | 30% fewer |
| Small and non-complex undertakings | 36% fewer | 44% fewer |
Fewer templates do not necessarily mean less data captured line by line, but they do mean fewer distinct returns to populate, validate and file each quarter and each year-end. For readers following the wider Solvency II simplification debate, InsuraBeat has separate coverage of EIOPA’s account of the first decade of Solvency II.
Guidelines Rewritten and Shortened Across the Board
The simplification drive extends beyond templates to the rulebook itself. EIOPA has been reviewing 25 sets of Guidelines and shortening them by around a third, while adopting a simplification-driven approach to new Level 3 measures. In practice, that means compliance and reporting teams have fewer pages of supervisory expectations to interpret when building internal control frameworks, and newer guidance is being drafted with brevity as a starting principle rather than an afterthought. The reviewed guidelines feed into supervisory convergence work that EIOPA has separately locked in for implementation across national authorities.
A New Proportionality Framework Takes Shape
Alongside the Guidelines review, EIOPA is implementing a new proportionality framework under Solvency II. The framework is meant to scale supervisory and reporting expectations to a firm’s size and risk profile more explicitly than before, rather than applying a largely uniform rulebook to undertakings of very different complexity. In a separate development, InsuraBeat has covered adjustments to the risk margin that regulators are finalising in parallel.
Stress Testing Tilts Toward Top-Down Analysis
On the supervisory side, EIOPA is making bottom-up stress tests less frequent and strengthening top-down analytical capabilities. Rather than running full firm-level exercises on the same cadence as before, supervisors are set to lean more heavily on centrally run analysis between the bottom-up rounds that remain. The same logic applies to data collection: EIOPA is making greater use of existing reported data where possible instead of creating new reporting obligations, a preference that, if sustained, would slow the addition of new templates even as existing ones are being cut.
EIOPA has also turned the lens on itself: the update points to simplifying EIOPA’s internal working group structure, to bring efficiency and closer coordination with national supervisors, a housekeeping change with no direct reporting impact for insurers but one that signals the initiative is not confined to external-facing rules.
Separately, the UK’s Prudential Regulation Authority has pursued its own campaign to cut Solvency UK reporting duties for annuity business, operating entirely outside the EU framework EIOPA oversees.
EIOPA Seeks Earlier Involvement in EU Lawmaking
Looking ahead, EIOPA is using the update to press for a bigger role earlier in the EU legislative process. EIOPA calls for an earlier and more structured involvement of the authority in the legislative process to support co-legislators in assessing the need, scope and feasibility of technical mandates. The aim, EIOPA says, is to promote integrated and digital-friendly data reporting that benefits both undertakings and supervisors — reporting infrastructure that is joined up and digital-first, rather than another round of template edits. That digital-reporting ambition runs alongside separate work steering insurers toward consistent sustainability disclosures under the EU taxonomy.
EIOPA frames all of this as an ongoing commitment rather than a single package of measures. The authority states that today’s update reaffirms EIOPA’s commitment to reducing administrative burden in a constructive and balanced way, and separately that simplification should become a continuous, long-term guiding principle of regulatory and supervisory work, rather than a one-off exercise.
