A letter sent on September 19 from Gabriel Bernardino, the Chairman of the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA), to the European Commission Director General of Internal Market and Services, Jonathan Fowl, was published by EIOPA on September 20.  The letter sets out EIOPA’s concerns around the selling of investment insurance products covered by the MiFID II.

In the letter, EIOPA states that such an inclusion could lead to regulatory inconsistency and have a negative impact on consumer protection, with the consequential risk that the products could be sold in accordance with sub-optimal requirements.  The letter goes on to list three reasons why rules governing the sale of investment insurance products should instead be included under the Insurance Mediation Directive (IMD) regime:

• To keep the rules of the sale of insurance packaged retail investment products within legislation designed for diverse forms of insurance distribution;
• To avoid MiFID-style client categorization; and
• To maintain the “demands and needs” test.  Letter.