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The Financial Stability Board (FSB) has declared 9 global insurers "critical for the functioning of the global financial system". In this they join 28 banks that were screened and selected last year. The insurance sector had up to now been left out of the process, with many institutions believing they had nothing to do with the 2008 financial crisis. This has now changed. The nine insurers are Allianz of Germany, AIG, MetLife and Prudential Financial of the United States, Aviva and Prudential of the UK, the French group Axa, Italy's Generali and the Chinese Insurerer Ping An. This inclusion of global insurers widens financial surveillance to a larger definition of financial players.



As GSIIs - Global Systematically Important Insurers - they will need to set up a series of risk-mitigating measures such as meeting capital requirements with gradual implementation by 2019. Reinsurers, such as Swiss Re are next in line to be examined and results for these companies will be published by the FSB next July 2014.