The insurance block exemption

Article 81(1) of the EC Treaty (now renumbered as article 101 following the adoption of the Amsterdam Treaty) prohibits all agreements, arrangements and concerted practices which have the object or effect of preventing, restricting or distorting competition within a substantial part of the European market. This is echoed, for the UK market, by the Chapter I Prohibition in the Competition Act 1998. A series of cases established that insurance fell within article 101(1), and in 1991 the European Council of Ministers adopted Council Regulation (EEC) No 1534/91 which authorised the European Commission to adopt a block exemption under article 101(3) of the EC Treaty exempting certain classes of insurance agreements from the prohibition. The most recent, and a more restrictive, version of the block exemption was published on 24 March 2010, Commission Regulation 267/2010/EC, and comes into force on 1 April 2010. However, there is a six-month transitional period during which agreements which were exempt under the earlier block exemption, but not under the new block exemption, remain exempt. The European Commission has published an explanatory communication: OJ 2010 C82/20.

Brief history of the block exemptions

Council Regulation (EEC) No 1534/91 authorised the European Commission to grant exemption to agreements which had as their object or effect any of the following: (a) the establishment of common risk premium tariffs based on collectively ascertained statistics or the number of claims; (b) the establishment of common standard policy conditions; (c) the common coverage of certain types of risks; (d) the settlement of claims; (e) the testing and acceptance of security devices; and (f) registers of, and information on, aggravated risks, provided that the keeping of these registers and the handling of this information is carried out subject to the proper protection of confidentiality.