Solvency II Taxonomy EIOPA

The EIOPA’s Solvency II regulatory framework has expanded to encompass a comprehensive range of reporting requirements. Currently, this includes Financial Stability Reporting, European Central Bank (ECB) Insurance Statistics, Own Risk and Solvency Assessment (ORSA), Solvency and Financial Condition Report (SFCR), Regular Supervisory Reporting (RSR), Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) Reporting for National Competent Authorities (NCAs).

Ensuring an efficient and effective process throughout the entire reporting cycle has always been one of EIOPA's key objectives. To achieve this, EIOPA has integrated complex regulatory requirements into the Solvency II taxonomy, supported by DPM (Data Point Methodology) and XBRL (eXtensible Business Reporting Language). This approach ensures full consistency and enables the use of a shared data dictionary, providing clear benefits to the market and NCAs. These benefits include reduced implementation costs for reporting entities and enhanced data integration for supervisory analysis. This integrated approach also aligns with EIOPA's commitment to enhancing the quality and reliability of supervisory reporting in the European insurance sector. 
 

DPM & XBRL synergy

EIOPA has increasingly utilized technology to provide a uniform implementation of the reporting requirements, assist market participants in fulfilling them and enhance data dissemination. The authority has effectively implemented IT solutions for data collection and analysis, including a centrally managed XBRL taxonomy, Data Point Meta-modelling, and improvements to the current Data Point Modelling approach, translating data items included in the relevant Technical Standards and Guidelines into a DPM. 
 
DPM is a data centric method (defined by ISO 5116)—a technology neutral, well-organised and comprehensive data-centric approach to organise meta-data concepts and define data with meaningful characteristics together with their contexts, relationships and other associations to improve data quality and enhance data analysis. Our team of dedicated technical experts have actively contributed to the methodology development across the business areas, with intention create a DPM as a bridge between the functional design of a reporting framework – “the business templates” – and the technical design of an XBRL taxonomy.  

XBRL is a standardized language used for transmitting and analyzing financial data.  The XBRL Taxonomies presents the data items, business concepts, relations and validation rules described by the DPM in the technical format of an XBRL taxonomy.  The “X” in XBRL stands for “eXtensible,” meaning that it is possible for the authority, depending on the framework in which it operates, to extend a taxonomy so that it best reflects its own unique nature. 

Over the years, the DPM methodology has significantly developed and has been integrated into the current taxonomies used by EIOPA and national authorities to extend their models. Another example would be the European Banking Authority (EBA) model for banking domain. 

This approach presents data in a business-friendly, non-technical manner while maintaining compliance with legal requirements. By incorporating multidimensional and semantic perspectives, DPM enhances data understanding, highlights relationships between business terms, and improves analytical capabilities. 
 

Automated taxonomy development

To maintain high-quality services in this area, EIOPA is focused on automating taxonomy production, minimizing errors, and reducing the impact of business and technical changes in reporting implementation. Since October 2022, EIOPA has been using ATOME Matter (learn more here), a collaborative metadata management and modelling platform, to support taxonomy development. Already adopted by several central banks and national competent authorities (NCAs), the platform helps users cross-check their understanding of data requirements. 
 

Solvency II Taxonomy Updates 

EIOPA continuously monitors submissions under the Solvency II taxonomy, identifying potential issues and necessary improvements to enhance reporting efficiency. In response to identified issues, EIOPA publishes hotfixes and releases to address them, enhance data quality, ensure accuracy of the submissions and improve the efficiency of Solvency II reporting. 
 
Addressing a high number of issues requiring additional workarounds in version 2.8.0 and given that the version was already in use, EIOPA decided to extend beyond a typical hotfix and released the 2.8.2 minor update for IT implementation reasons. Published on 15 October 2024, this update became be applicable from the Q4 2024 / annual 2024 reference periods until a new release is announced. 

EIOPA aims to maintain the approach of issuing one taxonomy release per year to streamline updates and minimize the number of taxonomy publications, allowing stakeholders to plan and adapt more efficiently. To support stakeholders in adapting to these changes, EIOPA shares a detailed Taxonomy Roadmap, providing a schedule for upcoming releases and submission deadlines. The latest updates to this roadmap were published on 15 November 2024. 
 
The EIOPA Taxonomy Roadmap for submission deadlines (updated 15/11/2024) is available on EIOPA's official website: EIOPA Taxonomy Roadmap.