On 28 April, FERMA submitted a response to the European Insurance and Occupational Pension Authority’s (EIOPA) consultation on Open Insurance.

EIOPA is consulting on open insurance to explore whether and how far insurance value chains could and should be ‘opened up’ by the sharing of insurance-related and specific policyholder data amongst the value chain.

EIOPA’s exploration of the topic is linked more broadly to the EU’s Data Strategy and the move towards ‘Open Finance’ that began with PSD2 for the banking sector.

The consultation investigations the definition of open insurance and possible use cases, as well as the potential risks, benefits and regulatory barriers. EIOPA also explores the areas to consider for a sound open insurance framework.

In its response FERMA encourages EIOPA to further explore the ramifications of the topic for corporate insurance buyers and SMEs, which are currently not sufficiently well considered in the document.

FERMA also emphasized that the ‘opening up’ of insurance data could have tremendous value for risk and insurance managers in terms of conducting risk assessments, investing in loss prevention measures and for strategies on risk transfer in general.

FERMA also made the link between EIOPA’s work on Open Insurance to its work on shared resilience solutions and for the natural catastrophe protection gap.

FERMA will elaborate its position on the topic in coming days and will engage with EIOPA further over coming months.