On 24 March 2010, the European Commission announced that it has
adopted a new insurance sector block exemption regulation (BER).
The new insurance BER will come into force on 1 April 2010 and last
until 31 March 2017. The insurance BER exempts certain aspects of
the insurance industry from the EU prohibition on restrictive
agreements.
The headline points of the new insurance BER are that it:
- renews exemption for joint compilations, tables and
studies;
- renews exemption for co-(re)insurance pools, subject to some
amendments;
- no longer exempts standard policy conditions; and
- no longer exempts agreements on security devices.
This should not come as a surprise as it is effectively what the
European Commission set out in its consultation draft of the
insurance BER in October 2009 (see our earlier
law now), although there are some slight amendments.
