The squeals of discomfort from UK insurers over the threat to their business from proposed new European rules on capital have intensified in recent weeks.

There has been a lot of focus on the potentially dramatic reductions in retirement income for future UK pensioners if the rules are not changed before they are implemented in 2012. Tim Breedon, chief executive of Legal & General, last week called the Solvency II rules in their current form a “betrayal of savers”.