Private Pensions Series No.5 Worldwide, insurance and pension reform is high on the political agenda and it will certainly remain so in the years to come. This is no less the case in the Baltic countries. The Baltics have made important progress in these sectors, with inter alia, thorough reform of the public pay as you go (PAYG) pension scheme, including the establishment of a complementary privately funded pension regime and important improvements in the regulation and supervision of insurance activities with a view to integration to the EU. Accordingly, Baltic private pensions and insurance (and particularly life insurance) markets have great growth prospects for the years to come.

Over the past five years, the core objective of the OECD Insurance and Pension Reform Activity of the OECD’s Baltic Regional Programme has been to analyse the issues and conduct dialogue among Baltic and OECD members, in order to provide recommendations which can assist policy reform in these fields. Given this aim, the present project which includes two connected publications in the insurance and private pensions fields, gathers high-quality analysis of the Baltic insurance and pension markets situation and regulation as well as experts’ reports focusing on key policy issues and OECD insurance and pension guidelines. The issues were selected in accordance with the Baltic economies’ needs and requests that emerged from among the topics raised in the Baltic Regional Programme meetings.

The private pensions publication released under the Private Pensions Series n°5 initially focuses on the description and study of the new Baltic pension schemes, their benefits, remaining weaknesses and future challenges. A comparative analysis introduces this part followed by three detailed studies prepared by Baltic experts dealing with pension reform and its progress in each country. A second section presents selected private pensions policy issues, inter alia, the expected consequences of investment regulation of pension funds in the Baltic States and the role of pension funds in private equity in these economies. This publication includes perspectives on these issues that were debated during the Pension Conference held on 23-25 April 2003 in Tallinn, and prepared in co-operation with the European Union.

The insurance publication released under Policy Issues in Insurance n°7  focuses on insurance markets situation in the Baltic countries and includes revised versions of papers highlighting major insurance policy issues discussed in Baltic workshops and that were deemed particularly relevant for Baltic policy makers and insurance market players in the future. Accordingly, the first section is organised around three reports dealing with, respectively, the life insurance, non-life insurance and reinsurance markets and their regulatory and supervisory framework, in the Baltic countries. The second section of this publication highlights selected policy issues including: compulsory insurance, taxation of life insurance products, liberalisation of insurance markets, environmental risks and insurance and financial integration.

The synergies stemming out of the combination of concrete and analytical reports, high-level Baltic and OECD experts’ point of view on private pensions and insurance issues as well as policy recommendations and “best practices” will certainly make these publications unique reference tools for Baltic countries’ policy makers and market players.

 

Table of contents

• Review of Recent Pension Reforms in the Baltic Region
• Comparing the New Pension Systems of the Baltic States
• Developments in the Estonian Pension System
• Review of Pension Reform in Latvia: How it was carried out and what the results show in 2003
• The Development of Private Pensions in Lithuania
• Pension Funds and their Role in the Future of the Baltic States’ Economies
• Private Equity in the Baltics: What role for pension funds?

 

How to obtain this publication

Readers can access the full version of Private Pensions Series No.5: Pension Reform in the Baltic Countries by choosing from the following options:

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