The European Commission has put forward a new proposal for a
directive on insurance mediation which should provide for significant
changes in practices of selling insurance products and guarantee
enhanced level of consumer protection. This proposal accompanies
other regulatory initiatives in the insurance sector, all of them pursuing
three main objectives: firstly, a strengthened insurance supervision with
convergent supervisory standards at EU level; secondly, a better risk
management of insurance companies; and thirdly a greater protection
of policyholders. All these initiatives contribute to the EU programme
on consumer protection and herald a new approach to EU insurance
regulation and supervision. However, while the new supervisory rules
are a direct response to the financial crisis and shortcomings of crossborder
cooperation between national supervisors, the plans for the
revision of insurance mediation rules were conceived much earlier
due to scandals with mis-selling of insurance products in the United
States and some EU Member States. This article will focus entirely on
the Commission’s initiative in the consumer mediation area and the
aspects of insurance supervision and risk management will be dealt
with in separate articles