Great overview of the impact of recent global events on the life insurance market from Petra Hielkema, Chair of EIOPA.
The speech also sets out EIOPA's 5 key considerations when examining whether unit-linked products offer consumers value for money:
- Pricing - manufacturers should be able to present a structured pricing process with clearly identified and quantified costs and no undue charges
- Complexity - consumer information in insurance-based investment products to be simpler, shorter, more visual and free of unnecessary jargon
- Testing - before market introduction, after significant adaptations and whenever needs, objectives and characteristics of the target market or the risks have changed significantly
- Monitoring - manufacturers should regularly review their unit-linked products to identify events that could materially affect the main features, the risk coverage or the guarantees
- Supervision - national supervisory authorities should monitor manufacturers' efforts to offer fair value for money to their customers
This article contains a general summary of developments and is not a complete or definitive statement of the law. Specific legal advice should be obtained where appropriate.