FCA launches general insurance market study

31 October 2018

The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) has set out the issues it will focus on as part of a market study into how general insurance (GI) firms charge their customers for home and motor insurance.

As part of the FCA’s 2018/2019 Business Plan, it said it would conclude a piece of supervisory work on insurance pricing practices, the results of which it has published. The FCA has decided that a package of measures is necessary following this initial work. These include:

• addressing conduct by firms,
• a market study on general insurance pricing practices,
• a wider discussion paper on fairness of pricing in financial services.

The FCA has been concerned that general insurance pricing practices have the potential to cause harm to consumers, particularly those who are vulnerable. The FCA’s goal is to ensure that retail general insurance markets deliver competitive and fair prices for consumers.

The market study will give the FCA a deeper understanding of the scale of any harm to consumers from general insurance pricing practices, who it affects and, if required, what actions are required to improve the market.

The FCA’s market study will focus on the following key issues:

• the consumer outcomes from pricing practices,
• the fairness of outcomes from pricing practices,
• the impact of pricing practices on competition,
• remedies to address any harm that the FCA finds.

The FCA’s supervisory work on home insurance found other issues which could cause harm to customers, including firms failing to have appropriate or clear pricing strategies, governance and controls. The FCA expects firms to look after the interests of all customers and treat them fairly, whether they are new or long-standing and has written to CEOs of firms about its expectations.

The FCA has also identified potential non-compliance by some firms with our rules on transparency at renewal. Where the FCA has concerns about conduct by firms, it will explore all options to address this using the full range of its powers.

Alongside launching the market study, the FCA has published a discussion paper on fair pricing in financial services markets. The discussion paper sets out the FCA’s approach to considering fairness of pricing in general. The FCA wants to hear views from stakeholders to inform the judgment of when pricing is unfair in financial services markets. These views will also inform the market study.

The FCA is seeking input on the issues discussed in the market study terms of reference and accompanying evidence by 3 December 2018 and input to the discussion paper on fair pricing and accompanying evidence by 31 January 2019.

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General insurance pricing practices market study

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