30 March 2012

AMICE Newsletter – March 2012

The Association of Mutual Insurers and Insurance Cooperatives in Europe's regular newsletter aims to keep members informed of the association's activities. It is also available for non-members.

This newsletter contains the following articles, as well as an events calendar:

Editorial by the President

“Diversity of motives for the owners of companies is necessary. Stability is not strengthened if capital interests dominate the financial sector and dictate the direction of regulatory reforms. It is most important to ensure a balance between company forms and good and free competition between different motives for ownership. In the insurance business, mutuality is the most natural company form. The more the insurance providers set out to cover those risks that the citizens perceive as traditional social security risks, the stronger is the case for a company form which ensures that there is no third party between the customer and the company.”

News from members: Tapiola-Local merger

Both the two companies, Mutual and Finnish, have decided to strengthen their operation model based on regional companies emphasising local presence and customer orientation.

Occupational pensions review

In its comments, AMICE stressed that members and beneficiaries of all types of pension schemes should benefit from the same level of protection and hence, that occupational pension providers should be regulated according to the risks borne by the products they sell, regardless of the legal form of the institution.

CEA becomes Insurance Europe

The European (re)insurance federation has changed its name from CEA to Insurance Europe.

Solvency II update

AMICE has addressed a letter to the rapporteur and key members of ECON, expressing concerns about developments, both in the process and in substance.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

This package, consisting of a draft Directive on ADR and a proposed Regulation on online dispute resolution (ODR), whose objective is to facilitate low-cost and fast redress for consumers, has already gained the support of the Parliament and the Council and is likely to give a new impetus to the Single Market.

News from members: Folksam & AMICE

Catherine Hock and Gregor Pozniak from the AMICE secretariat came to Folksam on 27 January 2012, to give a seminar for our employees. The seminar covered such topics as the place of mutuals in Europe, the current major areas of work for the European mutual sector, what AMICE does for its members and how with, of course, a special focus on the cooperation between Folksam and AMICE.

Meeting Of Reinsurance Officials

Subjects tackled, besides the state of today’s reinsurance market, will cover insurance regulation from a global perspective, lessons learned from recent high profile catastrophic events, and consideration of the potential for catastrophic losses from strikes, riots and civil commotion, as well as successful examples of reinsurance collaboration between cooperatives and mutuals.

Full newsletter

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