Former Prime Minister Alfred Sant has asked European Commission vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis to reconsider the application of a one-year delay for the implementation of the Insurance Distribution Directive legislation as requested by the Maltese industry.

Dr Sant, an MEP, intervened on behalf of ‘The Malta Insurance Association’ who earlier this week appealed for interventions on their behalf with the Commission stressing the lack of time for the correct implementation of the legislation, adopted by the EC last week.

The Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) aims to establish the conditions necessary for fair competition between distributors of insurance products and to create more opportunities for cross-border business.

Dr Sant said he was confident Mr Dombrovskis will agree that in the insurance sector, it was just and proper that the legitimate interests and reasonable claims of insurance providers in Malta be taken into account.

He said all players in the sector did not oppose the changes but were pleading they needed more time.

“It is of utmost importance for these changes to be uniformly implemented across Europe, without creating discrepancies among companies in different Member States and of different size. Only a realistic transposition period would allow this,” Dr Sant said.

Dr Sant had already highlighted the concerns of the industry. He had stressed with Mr Dombrovsksis that the Commission’s timeline for the finalisation of the delegated acts would leave too little time for the member states and their insurance sectors for their implementation.

Dr Sant said that now that the EC has adopted the delegated acts, the difficulties, then already forecast by the sector, had materialised. Many insurance companies and associations raised this problem, not only from Malta, but also from other states.

The Insurance Distribution Directive affects the entire distribution chain for insurance products, with many different stakeholders involved, and necessitates significant changes, mainly for SME operators.

The industry will need to revise and adapt existing processes and policies, while designing and implementing new ones in a number of different areas. Even the IT systems had to be changed to support the changes in the processes that the legislation required, with significant costs for the companies, Dr Sant said.

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