BoE to name UK insurers that can use models to calculate capital

LONDON, Dec 3 (Reuters) - The Bank of England will tell Britain's insurers on Saturday whether the models they use under new European Union rules to calculate their capital requirements have been approved.

The "Solvency II" rules allow insurers to use in-house models from January to determine how much capital they must hold to cover policyholder commitments.

Regulatory approval is needed for their use.

"On Saturday 5 December the Bank of England will publish a list of insurers whose internal models or partial internal models have been approved for use under Solvency II from 1 January 2016," the BoE said in a statement on Thursday.

Without the green light, an insurer must use the "standard formula" which typically would require a higher amount of expensive capital to be held.

The BoE has said about 20 models are expected to be approved.

(Reporting by Huw Jones, editing by Carolyn Cohn)