The Financial Supervisory Authority Finansinspektionen, an agency under the Ministry of Finance, exercises supervision over the Swedish insurance industry.
There are slightly more than 3,700 institutions under the Financial Supervisory Authority's supervision, among them insurance companies, insurance intermediaries and intermediary companies and friendly societies.
The Authority is to contribute to a financial system that functions efficiently, is stable and protects the consumer. The Authority's operations are concentrated in the areas of financial analysis, operational supervision, as well as licensing and various legal matters.
The operational supervision primarily involves monitoring the institutions' different risk areas, such as credit risks, internal control, liquidity, interest and market risks, currency risks, and information and data processing.
The insurance companies are obliged to provide, on an ongoing basis, information about their financial status, and the Supervisory Authority may, at any time, conduct on-site inspectionsand review the operations.
The internationalisation of the financial markets has meant that the Financial Supervisory Authority's area of supervision has expanded and now includes the Swedish institutions' operations within the EEA. It also co-operates with the supervisory authorities in other countries that are monitoring foreign financial activities in Sweden and participants in supervisory colleagues in monitoring groups of financial companies.
