This book provides a readable guide to EC insurance law. Though aimed primarily at a student readership, it offers a helpful path through the labyrinth of EC insurance Regulations and Directives for insurance law practitioners and other lawyers interested in this area.

EC Insurance Law starts with the concept of a single insurance market for insurance and how this has been developed by means of three “generations” of insurance Directives. It then describes the United Kingdom experience of the operation of the single market. The book is helpful in the way that in this chapter and others it sets out UK law and how it has been affected by EC law, for example, the impact of the Unfair Contract Terms Directive 1993, as implemented by the UK Government in the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Regulations 1994.

The authors highlight proposed EC legislation in insurance, such as that intended to harmonize the registration of intermediaries. The book also explains the EC rules for determining which court has jurisdiction to hear insurance or reinsurance disputes. It deals with the scope of the Brussels and Lugano Conventions. It then goes on to tackle choice of law questions and the Rome Convention. It does not seek to provide a detailed commentary on these Conventions and the case law that has developed. Nevertheless, it provides a useful overview for those who are not well acquainted with jurisdictional issues.

Finally, the book deals with insurance and competition law. It explains competition in the insurance market in the context of the general EC rules on competition. Once again, this chapter is not intended to be comprehensive, but provides a useful introduction for a reader who is not very familiar with EC anti-trust law but wishes to be better informed.

One of the few quibbles I have with this book is that the authors have devoted more pages to the topic of motor insurance than to the more wide ranging issues of competition law. It may be that the authors have thought it appropriate to deal with motor insurance in some detail as it has been the subject of a comprehensive harmonization programme within the European Community.

There is a short bibliography at the end of the book, where readers whose appetites have been wetted can find out more about the areas that interest them. The authors are to be congratulated on providing a succinct and lucid text and not burdening the book with numerous appendices setting out relevant Conventions, Regulations and Directives, which can be found elsewhere. They have also managed to refrain from quoting extensively from the legislation, which too often has led readers to regard this as a dull area of law. By setting the legislation in its European and UK contexts, the authors have managed to make this an interesting book which should lead readers to delve further into an expanding area of law.