27 June 2012

New EIOPA guidelines aim to harmonise supervisory practices

The guidelines cover complaints-handling by insurance companies and seek to address two current areas of concern.

The first is ‘information asymmetry'. For instance, insurers may not handle complaints in the best interests of policyholders, or policyholders may not know the standards to which insurers should adhere and may be unaware of the possibility to submit a complaint.

The second is the current lack of EU rules on complaints-handling by insurance companies which leads to a diverse number of national approaches and a potentially uneven playing field. The guidelines seek to promote a more convergent approach.

The guidelines are high-level principles and are addressed to competent supervisory authorities only. They aim to provide guidance on appropriate internal systems and control for complaints-handling by insurers (such as having a complaints management policy and complaints management function in place) and render them more effective.

They also seek to provide guidance on the provision of information and procedures for responding to complaints, thereby ensuring the adequate protection of policyholders and beneficiaries.

The guidelines have been supplemented by a more detailed best practices report, designed to promote common supervisory approaches and practices regarding internal systems and controls and internal follow-up of complaints.

"EIOPA appreciates the importance of proportionality in applying these guidelines to different-sized insurance undertakings and aims to consider this as part of a follow-up initiative", the organisation said.

Gabriel Bernardino, chairman of EIOPA, added: "With these guidelines, EIOPA aims to take an important step towards promoting more transparency, simplicity and fairness in the market for consumer financial products and services and thereby enhance consumer protection, one of our key objectives.

"The guidelines fill an important regulatory gap and we expect competent supervisory authorities to make every effort to comply with them. We will be monitoring compliance with these guidelines closely in the months ahead."

Press release

Full guidelines

© EIOPA