This chapter clarifies why blunt force regulation is so distinctive. It begins by outlining two underlying logics regulatory enforcement, namely, “rules-based” regulation (which prioritizes effectiveness) and “risk-based” regulation (which prioritizes efficiency). Drawing on case details, it then illustrates how blunt force regulation fits into neither category, offering neither efficient nor effective regulation in the long-term. Instead, it represents an unusual combination of indiscriminate enforcement (which devalues compliances) and arbitrary but inflexible enforcement (which increases regulatory distrust and business uncertainty). This raises the question: Why blunt force regulation?

This is the first of two chapters focused on standards likely to support the internationalisation services in a supposedly most-likely case (the insurance industry being far from the ideal type of relational, non-material services). Both show that the standardisation of insurance is paved with difficulties. This substantiates the extensive hypothesis set in the , according to which setting service standards is less dependent on intrinsic attributes of the industry than on broader power configurations. This first chapter is focused on the regulation side of the insurance industry in the post-crisis era. After some background on the insurance industry, it examines the European Directive Solvency II – the most ambitious regulatory overhaul ever undertaken for insurance industries – and how it set the stage for developments at the global level under the aegis of the International Association of Insurance Supervision (IAIS) and regulatory policy reforms in the United States. In contrast to views focused on the ingrained power of either public regulation or private securitisation, I show that ambiguous transfers of authority pervade the three private-public, technical-societal, and national-transnational dimensions of my analytical framework.