Gilmore Aaron: Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill — Second Reading 
Gilmore Aaron: Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill — Second Reading 
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AARON GILMORE (National) 
: 
 If ever there was a moment to talk about insurance it is right now with a particular gentleman and the Labour Party’s needing insurance. One cannot insure political parties unfortunately. The Insurance (Prudential Supervision) Bill is about insurance. One cannot insure against mislaid documents and one cannot insure against misused bits of paper that disappear but one can insure against other financial misfortune. That is what this bill is all about: the ability to take into account prudential issues in the insurance sector. Every now and again people might get waylaid documents could get misplaced or things could go disastrously wrong and in those situations one never knows what might happen or where things might end up. 
David Garrett 
: Vicissitudes. 
AARON GILMORE 
: Exactly. 
I will talk seriously about two aspects of this bill which are issues around the solvency requirements. It is very important that insurance companies are kept solvent for Kiwi mums and dads. We never know who may have invested their money in insurance companies to cover unexpected circumstances such as death or loss of income. We never quite know when we might need income replacement insurance. Some people might be very interested right now in how safe their money is. I must say that I am quite relaxed about that. I am lucky; I am fortunate. I am very happy with my insurance situation at the moment. My life insurance is invested with a very safe company and it will only be made safer by this bill. I think that is a great thing. 
The solvency requirements in this bill will improve the safety of the insurance companies that Kiwi mums and dads have invested in. If I were in the Labour Party I would be worried about where its investments might be in terms of solvency whether it has invested in real estate or in other things. The Reserve Bank has put in place some very good rules to make sure that the money that Kiwi mums and dads invested in insurance companies is nice and safe. 
I will talk quickly about one other thing: the issue of captive insurance companies. This bill allows captives to thrive and particularly New Zealand - based captives to be able to operate within a regulatory arrangement. That is good for big companies in New Zealand that operate large infrastructure businesses. I know we debated the Infrastructure Bill earlier. These sorts of companies like to self-insure their major assets through New Zealand - owned and operated captives and this bill goes a long way to assist them in continuing to operate. I think that is a really good thing particularly for big State-owned enterprises like Solid Energy KiwiRail and Transpower as well as other big entities operating in the infrastructure sector. I think it is highly positive that the hard-working people who use those services will have the trust and the knowledge that those assets will be better looked after and more safe because of this bill. 
During the debate of this bill some members touched on the great work that the Finance and Expenditure Committee did. I thank my colleague the deputy chair Amy Adams who did a lot of the work during the submission phase. Amy Adams has to be congratulated on the work she did in that area particularly because the chair was quite busy doing other things every now and again. I thought she did a very very good job dealing with issues brought up by the submissions. There were about 50-odd submissions and we heard about 30 of them. They were very varied. I vividly remember the one from the Air Line Pilots’ Association. There were many comments about its worries about insurance. Many comments were made about pilots’ worries about insurance. People who fly a lot would be very concerned to ensure the pilots were adequately insured in order for the planes to keep flying so that members of Parliament if they so choose can continue to travel overseas. 
I will wrap it up there. This bill is pretty much self-explanatory. Members are comfortable with it across the House and there is pretty much a unanimous perception that it is a good step in the right direction by the hard-working John Key - led Government.