The Canadian insurance industry is endorsing the latest efforts of the G20 to help resolve the global financial crisis.

Ahead of the G20 Summit in London on April 2, the Canadian Life and Health Insurance Association, along with six other international insurance industry trade associations, released a letter that they sent to the G20 leaders, setting out their preferred aproach to overhauling the regulation of the financial services sector.

On Wednesday, the CLHIA said that it welcomes the initiatives announced by the G20 leaders in London. “We believe that the G20 has charted a new course for bringing long-term stability to the global financial services sector,” noted CLHIA president, Frank Swedlove.

“The G20 has adopted measures to deal with many of the underlying causes of this financial crisis,” he added, noting that these measures are consistent with the recommendations made by the trade associations’ letter.

Notably, the CLHIA points out that the G20 “recognized the global nature of the financial services sector, urging better coordination between individual regulators and stressing the need to identify global systemic risks through effective monitoring. In addition, the G20 leaders echoed the concerns of the insurance industry as they relate to the dangers of trade protectionism and the importance of renewing the standstill agreement on trade and investment barriers which was reached at their November meeting in Washington, D.C. Finally, the G-20 also called on accounting standard setters to continue their work to further improve the applicability of fair value accounting.”

IE