Europe faces a transformative era with political shifts, aging populations, climate crises, and technological disruptions. The 2024 elections highlighted polarization, while war and trade tensions expose vulnerabilities. Insurance Europe emphasizes insurance’s role as a stabilizing force, urging smarter, proportionate regulations. Their strategic reset aligns with EU priorities, focusing on savings, natural disaster protection, AI, and insurance’s societal value to boost competitiveness and resilience.
Insurance Europe responded to the EBA’s consultation on EU anti-money laundering Regulatory Technical Standards, supporting a harmonized, data-driven risk assessment but urging proportionality. They advocate for minimal, targeted data collection, reasonable transition periods, and revised data points to ease burdens, particularly for low-risk products. The federation opposes excessive customer data requirements, supports remote identification, and proposes event-driven updates for low-risk life insurance and simplified due diligence for pensions and pure risk policies. Insurance Europe commits to collaborating for an effective, risk-based AML/CFT framework.
A Europe-wide survey by Insurance Europe and the European Youth Parliament, involving 651 young people from 33 countries, revealed that young Europeans value insurance for protection but find the purchasing process complex and paperwork-heavy. They demand simpler, more digital, and user-friendly solutions. Insurance Europe urges EU policymakers to simplify processes for young consumers.
Insurance Europe urges a simpler, phased approach to the EU’s Financial Data Access (FIDA) framework to boost competitiveness. They highlight the need for clarity on data scope to protect sensitive information and a realistic timeline beyond the proposed 18 months for effective implementation.
Insurance Europe responded to EIOPA's draft Opinion on AI governance in insurance, supporting clarity on existing rules but raising concerns over potential new obligations. It cautioned that the draft's language might lead to supervisory expectations being misinterpreted as binding requirements, conflicting with the EU's simplification goals for smaller firms. Insurance Europe also highlighted risks of dual supervision in some regions and emphasized the need for clear distinctions between different AI types and user roles. It urged EIOPA to focus on aligning the Opinion with established frameworks like Solvency II and GDPR for effective oversight.
The insurance industry supports delaying the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD) and Corporate Sustainability Due Diligence Directive (CSDDD) until 2028 while negotiations continue. Insurance Europe emphasizes the need for more time to assess impacts and avoid excessive regulatory burdens. Key recommendations include reducing CSRD reporting requirements, postponing CSDDD deadlines, simplifying EU Taxonomy rules, and removing Sustainability Risk Plans under Solvency II.
Insurance Europe calls on the EU to simplify the Retail Investment Strategy (RIS) to improve consumer access to investment, protection, and advice. Their recommendations include streamlining the "value for money" assessment by allowing supervisors to use benchmarks without requiring peer grouping by insurers and avoiding new reporting. They also advocate for a smoother consumer journey by shortening suitability tests and removing duplicative inducement tests. Finally, they propose reducing information overload by focusing on key disclosures and avoiding overly technical cost details. These simplifications, they argue, will boost investment and EU competitiveness.