Abstract
The aim of this chapter is to examine how different insurance companies have adopted and interpreted Sweden’s transposition of European Union (EU) directive Solvency II, launched in 2016, with regard to the directive’s corporate governance rules in their own organizations. Solvency II is aimed at protecting the policyholders, that is, insurance consumers as well as to stabilize the insurance market. The chapter concerns Solvency II’s section on corporate governance, that is, Articles 40–50 with special focus on Article 40. This Article sets out that each member state of the EU shall ensure that the administrative, management, or supervisory body of the insurance company (mutuals included) has the ultimate responsibility for the compliance with the laws, regulations, and administrative provisions adopted pursuant to the directive. However, Solvency II does not dictate how it should be transposed. Rather, each member state translates Article 40 in accordance to the state’s current corporate governance system. This means that there are contravening conceptions within the insurance industry on how the Article should be transposed and what consequences it will bring to the roles of management and boards and division of workload between these roles in mutual enterprises.