SPAIN : CGPA EUROPE SHARES ITS VIEWS ON THE PROFESSIONAL INDEMNITY OF EUROPEAN INSURANCE INTERMEDIARIES

On Octo­ber 27th, The Gene­ral Coun­cil of the Col­leges of Insu­rance Inter­me­dia­ries (El Conse­jo Gene­ral de los Cole­gios de Media­dores de Segu­ros) and CGPA Europe held an online confe­rence to ana­lyse both the evo­lu­tion of the pro­fes­sio­nal indem­ni­ty of insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries in Europe and the situa­tion ari­sing from the Covid-19 pan­de­mic, as well as its impact for insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries. This video-confe­rence brought toge­ther around a hun­dred par­ti­ci­pants.

This video­con­fe­rence was an oppor­tu­ni­ty for Spa­nish inter­me­dia­ries to get an over­view of the situa­tion in the rest of Europe and to enable them to bet­ter unders­tand the risks they face in car­rying out their activity

Eric Evian, Pre­sident and CEO of CGPA Europe, out­li­ned the main sources of claims that insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries are facing in Europe : “Our expe­rience in Europe allows us to know the nature of the claims that insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries are facing,” he explai­ned. He repor­ted a “sharp increase” in claims ari­sing “from a lack of writ­ten advice from insu­rance intermediaries”.

He also out­li­ned the impact of the pan­de­mic on insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries : “In Janua­ry 2020, no com­pa­ny or ana­lyst pla­ced a pan­de­mic in its risk baro­me­ters”. Howe­ver, the Covid-19 has become the grea­test risk and eve­ry­thing points to 2020 being the year with the highest losses for insu­rance. Many Insu­rance com­pa­nies refu­sed to cover Busi­ness Inter­rup­tion claims ari­sing from the pan­de­mic, because their poli­cy wor­dings were unclear. As a result, Insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries are often “caught in the middle” bet­ween the insurer’s refu­sal to indem­ni­fy and their client, clai­ming for an indem­ni­ty. This confe­rence pro­vi­ded an oppor­tu­ni­ty to share ideas to enable insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries to adopt good prac­tices in dea­ling with this risk, as well as indi­ca­tions on the right reac­tions to adopt in such cases.

Gon­za­lo Itur­men­di, part­ner and direc­tor of G. Itur­men­di y Aso­cia­dos and gene­ral secre­ta­ry of Agers,  (Aso­cia­ción Españo­la de Geren­cia de Ries­gos y Segu­ros) , out­li­ned the impor­tance to iden­ti­fy, ana­lyse and eva­luate the risks lin­ked to the acti­vi­ty of insu­rance inter­me­dia­ry : “pro­fes­sio­nals have deal with two risk control and pre­ven­tion sys­tems, com­pliance and qua­li­ty,” he said. During his pre­sen­ta­tion, Gon­za­lo Itur­men­di explai­ned how to apply these tools and ana­ly­sed the rules that must be com­plied with to avoid claims.

This video-confe­rence was also an oppor­tu­ni­ty to high­light the impor­tance of new tech­no­lo­gies and inno­va­tion for insu­rance inter­me­dia­ries : Rei­nei­ro Sarasúa, Pre­sident of the Gene­ral Coun­cil, poin­ted out that “inter­me­dia­ries have to lead pro­fes­sio­nal deve­lop­ment through tech­no­lo­gi­cal growth, the conti­nuous trai­ning of our teams, inves­ting in inno­va­tion and deve­lop­ment of tech­no­lo­gy and the digi­ta­li­sa­tion of our companies”.

Before clo­sing the event, Car­los Mon­te­si­nos, Mana­ging Direc­tor of CGPA Europe Under­wri­ting in Spain, stres­sed that know­ledge of the ori­gin of claims helps to prevent situa­tions that could lead to a claim, and that action must be taken on two fronts : “Ensu­ring com­pliance with the legal fra­me­work and having action pro­to­cols that allow inter­me­dia­ries to com­bine res­pect and protection”.

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