General Insurance

Recent Articles

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  20/11/2024

  Mansion House Speech: Points of interest for the insurance sector

  The Chancellor, Rachel Reeves, delivered her first Mansion House speech on 14 November. The message was clear – the Government wants to achieve secure and sustainable economic growth, and competitiveness and growth in the UK’s financial services sector is key. Regulatory changes made after the financial crisis to eliminate risk-taking have ‘gone too far’: “the UK has been regulating for risk, but not regulating for growth…now is…the moment to rebalance our approach”. There is a push for the regulators to focus on this and the PRA and FCA have...

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  30/07/2024

  FCA begins review of commercial and bespoke insurance regulation

  The Financial Conduct Authority (“FCA”) has issued a discussion paper DP24/1 (“DP”) initiating a comprehensive review of the regulation of commercial and bespoke insurance businesses.The primary objective of this DP is to solicit feedback to determine whether the FCA’s current rules appropriately balance between safeguarding customers who may require regulatory protection and the competitiveness in the commercial non-investment general insurance market. The FCA acknowledges the potential for changes that could better align these priorities, changes that have...

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  22/07/2024

  Key Takeaways from our AI in Financial Services Panel Event

  During our recent panel event on Artificial Intelligence (“AI”) in Financial Services, the panel explored how firms are implementing AI in practice, the application of legal, regulatory and ethical frameworks to AI, and potential challenges for firms and regulators. An audience of legal, compliance and business professionals from across the sector made interesting contributions to the debate. The session operated under the Chatham House rule, but here are some of the key takeaways from what was a fascinating discussion....

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  27/06/2024

  FCA publishes Consumer Duty outcomes review – what do I need to know?

  The FCA has published the results of its multi-firm review into Consumer Duty outcomes monitoring. Although the review concentrated on 20 of the larger insurance firms, the FCA’s observations are relevant to all retail financial services firms and all firms should consider the review’s findings.What are the key takeaways for firms?Firms tend to concentrate too much on processes being completed rather than on outcomes being delivered. For example, reporting on whether there are overdue value assessments or product reviews, without providing any insight into the key findings, lessons...

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  11/02/2020

  Insurance 2020: The Customer Lens

  Protecting consumers is one of the FCA’s statutory objectives and protection of insurance customers has always been a key priority for the FCA. However, there is a palpable sense that there will be an even greater shift towards this in 2020 - heralded in part by the promise of a Discussion Paper on the FCA Principles, a consultation paper on a new Duty of Care; and by Christopher Woolard’s clear statement in his speech on 21 October 2019 that the FCA will be moving from a “narrower compliance with the rules, to a focus on delivering the outcomes we want for the users of financial...

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  30/01/2020

  Insurance 2020: The Belgian perspective

  The Belgian insurance market in 2020 will be Brexit-focused. UK insurers and brokers who moved their European operations to Belgium have been waiting for exit day before pulling the trigger and switching their Brexit planning to live and finalising their Brexit implementation plans. The Belgian regulators, the National Bank of Belgium and the Financial Services and Markets Authority, have welcomed UK insurers and brokers to Belgium and shown flexibility and understanding about their need to transfer their activities to Belgium gradually in order to maintain operational continuity. They have also...

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