The Directive will establish a legislative framework to ensure a high level of professionalism and competence among insurance intermediaries.
The aim of the proposal:
To guarantee that all …
The Directive will establish a legislative framework to ensure a high level of professionalism and competence among insurance intermediaries.
The aim of the proposal:
To guarantee that all persons taking up and pursuing the activity of insurance or reinsurance mediation have been registered on the basis of a minimum set of professional requirements. More importantly, once registered, intermediaries can operate in other member states, allowing UK brokers to work and expand their businesses abroad.
The proposal highlights four main criteria:
Insurance intermediaries must possess appropriate general, commercial and professional knowledge and ability;
They must have professional indemnity insurance or another comparable guarantee against liability arising from professional negligence;
Intermediaries who handle customers' monies must have sufficient financial capacity. This includes making sure insurance and reinsurance intermediaries have reserves "on a permanent basis to 8% of their annual net revenue" with a minimum amount of ¤15,000 (£9,332). Also a customer's account must be "segregated".
Intermediaries must be of good repute and not bankrupt.
The scope of the proposal is far-reaching, but does have exclusions. It says member states need not apply the directive to persons providing insurance contracts where:
