CEA calls for minimum harmonisation regime during IMD review debate
13 December 2010
The CEA believes that the review should focus on the true needs of consumers. It is therefore important that the future Directive is a minimum harmonisation directive so that it is flexible enough to adapt to local consumers’ needs.
Speaking at the hearing, Alastair Evans, chair of the CEA’s single market committee, said: “Insurance distribution channels vary across markets and this existing adaptation to national habits should remain possible in the future.”
Expressing the CEA’s support for a high level of consumer protection for all insurance buyers, Evans also called for a proportionate approach when considering the rules that should be applied to different distribution channels.
In a second panel debate at the hearing, William Vidonja, head of the CEA’s single market and social affairs department, welcomed the Commission’s acknowledgement that the concepts of distribution in insurance and banking differ fundamentally. The CEA supports the EC in its recognition that rules cannot be read across from banking to insurance without taking into account insurance specificities.
The CEA welcomes the importance the EC places on high-level principles on selling practices for insurance as this would allow for the modulation of the principles to the complexity of the products. For this reason it has developed a Key Information Checklist to help policyholders better understand the key features of unit-linked life insurance. The checklist contains the minimum information that consumers should be provided with, regardless of the channel through which they buy.
© CEA - Comité Européen des Assurances
