Following the European Commission's recent announcement of a final public consultation, the CEA is opposing the Commission’s proposal not to renew the sections of the BER covering standard policy conditions (SPCs) and security devices.
Following the European Commission’s announcement on 5 October of a final public consultation on its proposals for a new Insurance Block Exemption Regulation (BER), the CEA is calling for renewal of all four categories of agreement currently exempted by the BER. It is also questioning the new conditions placed by the EC on the two categories it is currently proposing to renew.
The whole European insurance industry has long supported the renewal of all four categories of cooperation currently covered by the Insurance BER. It therefore welcomes the Commission’s support for its renewal of joint compilations, tables and studies and for insurance pools.
The CEA, however, strongly opposes the Commission’s proposal not to renew the sections of the BER covering standard policy conditions (SPCs) and security devices. Insurers’ specifications are high quality standards promoting risk prevention and security to the benefit of consumers. Not renewing the exemption on security devices would have the adverse effect of lowering the quality of prevention systems.
The CEA is also unhappy about some of the amendments proposed by the Commission to the conditions of the renewed exemptions. It points out that the suggested changes to the calculation of the market share for pools would make the proposed exemption unworkable as it de facto drives out insurers with a medium or large market share from pools benefiting from the BER.
Furthermore, the Commission’s proposal to oblige insurers to disclose the results of joint compilations to third parties upon request could have the unintended consequence of misinforming consumers, since wrong conclusions could potentially be drawn by third parties who do not have the technical knowledge to understand and interpret such compilations correctly.
The current BER for the insurance sector sets out the conditions under which insurance companies can cooperate without infringing EU competition law. The BER is due to expire on 31 March 2010.
© CEA - Comité Européen des Assurances
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