Insurance guarantee schemes

The CEA supports the European Commission’s objective of protecting consumers — policyholders and beneficiaries — in the unlikely event of an insurer becoming insolvent and being unable to fulfil its contractual commitments. It believes that the existing and forthcoming European insurance regulatory framework already ensure an adequate level of policyholder protection and that there is therefore no current case for an EU initiative on insurance guarantee schemes (IGS).

Insurers’ technical provisions, the Solvency II regulatory regime that will come into force at the end of 2012 and the new EU supervisory structure from 1 January next year all ensure that consumers are well protected.

Despite its opposition to an EU initiative, the CEA remains fully involved in the debates about IGS at European level. It has provided the Commission with its views on the proposals in the Commission’s White Paper on IGS, which was published in July 2010.