The US Federal Reserve has launched a “quantitative impact study” to evaluate the effects of its revised regulatory capital framework for insurance companies.

It has written to 20 insurance holding companies that fall under the central bank’s supervision, including two “non-bank insurance companies” – AIG and Prudential Financial – which have both been designated “systemically important”.

“The [study] is being conducted to allow the board to better understand how to design a capital framework for insurance holding companies it supervises,” the Federal Reserve says.

It says the data collection is voluntary.

“The data collected… will be used to analyse the impact of various aspects of the regulatory capital framework revised by the Federal Reserve board… on firms substantially engaged in insurance underwriting activities, including savings and loan holding companies and non-bank financial companies supervised by the board.”

The revised regulatory capital framework took effect in July last year. The Federal Reserve will take submissions until December 31.