On Friday 11 August, the European Commission adopted an implementing regulation setting out a standardised presentation format for the information document on insurance products, to accompany all non-life insurance policies from 2018 onwards.
“These new rules will allow consumers to have all information necessary to make an informed decision when buying insurance products, such as car, travel or house insurance”, the Commission states in a press release.
This standardised notice - provided for in the framework of the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) and to be transposed by the member states by 23 February 2018 - is based on the same model as the information document already in place for life assurance products.
The implementing technical standards govern the length of the document (two A4 sides), references to the pre-contractual and contractual information it must contain, the presentation and order of its content and the use of icons.
On the same day, the Commission announced the adoption of additional implementing rules for the IDD in the coming weeks. This will be a delegated act on the application of the rules of conduct for life assurance products and a delegated act on the surveillance and governance of products, which will apply to insurance products of all kinds. The two acts were the subject of public consultation, which ran until 17 August.
Responding to the consultation on the second delegated act, on the surveillance and governance of products, the organisations Better Finance and the Bund der Versicherten expressed the view that the Commission's proposal reduced consumer protection compared to the technical opinion returned by the European Insurance Occupational Pensions Authority on 1 February 2017. (Original version in French by Marion Fontana)