Costa Rican President Dr. Oscar Arias Sanchez recently
signed into law the new Ley Reguladora del Mercado de Seguros,
thereby ending the Instituto Nacional de Seguros' (INS)
more than eighty-year-old monopoly over the Costa Rican
insurance business. The Consejo Nacional de Supervision del
Sistema Financiero (CONASSIF) is charged with establishing an
insurance regulatory authority and implementing the other
mandates of the new law. CONASSIF has already indicated that
the market should be open to competition and the regulator
should be prepared to accept applications for insurance
business by the end of September 2008 at the latest.
Although CONASSIF will also be responsible for creating
regulations governing the requirements for entities applying to
carry on insurance business in Costa Rica, several basic tenets
are already set forth in the new law: (1) Domestic and foreign
companies (with local branches) will be permitted to operate
insurance business in Costa Rica; (2) CONASSIF will issue
obligatory investment regulations governing all insurers; (3)
Companies seeking to sell personal lines insurance will be
required to have minimum operating capital of $3 million; (4)
Companies wishing to operate as reinsurers will be required to
have minimum capital of $10 million; and (5) 4% of all direct
premiums from all lines of insurance will be used to finance
the Costa Rican fire departments. Notably, the minimum capital
requirements contained in the new law are far lower than those
contemplated in earlier drafts, which ranged from $10 million
to $40 million.
The new law also grants certain new freedoms to the INS,
including the ability to expand its operations into foreign
markets.
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