Insurance Europe: Last chance for EU policymakers to fix data protection rules
15 June 2015
Europe’s insurers remain extremely concerned about several aspects of proposed EU data protection rules that are due to enter the final stages of discussion by the European institutions, according to Insurance Europe.
The Council of the EU adopted its general approach on the proposed regulation on the protection and free movement of data. This means that discussions to finalise the rules, called trialogue discussions, can begin between the European Parliament, the Council and the European Commission. Consequently, it is important that insurers’ concerns are taken on board during these final discussions to avoid the rules having unintended consequences.
In particular:
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Insurance Europe is calling for data controllers, such as insurers, to be provided with a legal
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basis within the rules to process data for fraud detection and prevention purposes.
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The rules need to allow insurers to continue profiling prospective policyholders to both better
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assess the risks which they are being asked to cover, as well as to detect and prevent fraud.
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The rules must also allow insurers to retain data in order to comply with regulatory and contractual obligations, and for fraud prevention and detection purposes. Insurers must, therefore, be able to reject policyholder requests for data to be deleted in such cases.
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Insurance Europe is calling for a contract to be one of the legal grounds that allows for sensitive
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data to be processed by insurers. Insurance Europe also supports a narrow health data definition, where administrative information should not be treated as sensitive data.
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Insurance Europe believes that insurers should not be forced to disclose confidential information, eg underwriting criteria, to competitors under the new rules.
© InsuranceEurope
