Support for block exemption to insurance industry

The European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs (EMA) Committee has approved a draft Resolution tabled by Werner Langen (EPP, Germany), giving its support to the continuation of a block exemption from EC competition rules for the insurance industry.

The draft Resolution represents the EMA Committee’s response to the Commission’s report on the workings of the Regulation which grants general exemptions for agreements between insurance companies on the calculation of premiums, the establishment of policy conditions, and joint coverage of certain types of risk and safety equipment.

The Committee recognises the advantages the block exemption represents for the Commission’s workload on routine notifications, enabling the Commission to concentrate on more important cases. Nevertheless, co-insurance and co-insurance pools are generally not covered by the block-exempted agreements and in line with the Commission’s new approach to competition policy with emphasising the economic impact of agreements, the Committee called on the Commission to extend the block exemption rules to these categories of agreements.

Furthermore, when the Regulation comes up for review in 2003, the Committee is proposing that the claims settlement area should then also be included on the grounds that the Commission has received few notifications under the new Regulation and that it does not seem to pose a problem. The Committee said it would also like to see a review of the arrangements covering co-insurance if foreign risks account for more than 20% of total risks. (European Report, 08/04/2000)