11 July 2012

Equality Act 2010 - An ABI good practice guide for insurers

The Association of British Insurers' guide is intended to ensure that insurers understand their obligations under the Equality Act 2010. In particular, ABI hopes insurers will re-examine their processes and procedures, to ensure they are taking all reasonable steps towards this.

This guide focuses on the protected characteristics specified in the Act, but the principles underpinning this guide can also be applied more widely. In speaking with groups in equalities issues, some key areas that have been highlighted are:

• ensuring that a firm’s equality obligations are understood by all levels of staff;
• ensuring that underwriting decisions are compatible with the law;
• helping customers understand the reasons behind underwriting and claims decisions;
• ensuring that insurance documentation (e.g. proposal forms, policy wordings etc.) does not contain potentially discriminatory language.

This guide covers all of these areas, providing a background to the Act and its general principles. It will be expanded to cover each protected characteristic individually in due course.

To be effective, any guidance needs to be practical. Accordingly, ABI sets out to get advice from a wide range of organisations both within and outside the industry and is delighted that so many organisations were willing to help. There is no doubt that these suggestions have helped to improve the guidance significantly.

Full guideline

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