In 2019 we undertook a full review of the various boards and committees of a large UK insurance business (a subsidiary of an overseas group). We concluded that the governance system, which had been created years earlier in response to regulatory pressure, was now hindering rather than helping the effectiveness of board governance. We suggested a simpler structure which over the next few years, with the regulator’s agreement, was developed and implemented.
In 2022 the regulator asked that we undertake a two-part exercise, first a desk-top review to assess the design of the new governance arrangements, and then our “normal” board and committee review to assess the arrangements’ effectiveness in practice. The second element of this followed a similar methodology to that outlined in this proposal.