The Solvency ii
Directive
TITLE I
GENERAL RULES ON THE TAKING-UP AND PURSUIT OF DIRECT INSURANCE
AND REINSURANCE
CHAPTER I
SUBJECT MATTER, SCOPE AND
DEFINITIONS
SECTION 1 - SUBJECT MATTER AND SCOPE
Article 1
Subject matter
This Directive lays down rules concerning the following:
(1) the taking-up and pursuit, within the Community, of the
self-employed activities of direct insurance and reinsurance;
(2) the supervision in the case of insurance and
reinsurance groups;
(3) the reorganisation and
winding-up of direct insurance undertakings.
Article 2
Scope
1. This
Directive shall apply to direct life and non-life insurance
undertakings which are established in the territory of a Member
State or which wish to become established there.
It shall
also apply to reinsurance undertakings, which conduct only
reinsurance activities, and which are established in the
territory of a Member State or which wish to become established
there with the exception of Title IV.
2. As far as
non-life insurance is concerned, this Directive shall apply to
non-life insurance activities of the classes set out in part A
of Annex I.
For the purposes of the first subparagraph
of paragraph 1 non-life insurance shall include the activity
which is assistance provided for persons who get into
difficulties while travelling, while away from home or while
away from their permanent residence.
It shall consist
in undertaking, against the prior payment of a premium, to make
aid immediately available to the beneficiary under an assistance
contract where that person is in difficulties following the
occurrence of a chance event, in the cases and under the
conditions set out in the contract.
The aid may consist
in the provision of benefits in cash or in kind. The provision
of benefits in kind may also be effected by means of the staff
and equipment of the person providing them.
The
assistance activity shall not cover servicing, maintenance,
after-sales service or the mere indication or provision of aid
as an intermediary.
3. As far as life insurance is
concerned this Directive shall apply to the following:
(a) the following life insurance activities where they are on a
contractual basis:
(i) life insurance which comprises,
assurance on survival to a stipulated age only, assurance on
death only, assurance on survival to a stipulated age or on
earlier death, life assurance with return of premiums, marriage
assurance, birth assurance;
(ii) annuities;
(iii)
supplementary insurance underwritten in addition to life
insurance, in particular, insurance against personal injury
including incapacity for employment, insurance against death
resulting from an accident and insurance against disability
resulting from an accident or sickness;
(iv) the type of
permanent health insurance not subject to cancellation currently
existing in Ireland and the United Kingdom known as permanent
health insurance not subject to cancellation;
(b) the
following operations, where they are on a contractual basis, in
so far as they are subject to supervision by the authorities
responsible for the supervision of private insurance:
(i)
operations whereby associations of subscribers are set up with a
view to jointly capitalising their contributions and
subsequently distributing the assets thus accumulated among the
survivors or among the beneficiaries of the deceased (tontines)
;
(ii) capital redemption operations based on actuarial
calculation whereby, in return for single or periodic payments
agreed in advance, commitments of specified duration and amount
are undertaken;
(iii) management of group pension funds,
comprising the management of investments, and in particular the
assets representing the reserves of bodies that effect payments
on death or survival or in the event of discontinuance or
curtailment of activity;
(iv) the operations referred to
in point (iii) where they are accompanied by insurance covering
either conservation of capital or payment of a minimum interest;
(v) the operations carried out by life insurance
undertakings such as those referred to in Chapter 1, Title 4 of
Book IV of the French "Code des assurances";
(c)
operations relating to the length of human life which are
prescribed by or provided for in social insurance legislation,
in so far as they are effected or managed by life insurance
undertakings at their own risk in accordance with the laws of a
Member State.
SECTION 2 - EXCLUSIONS FROM SCOPE
SUBSECTION 1 - GENERAL
Article 3
Statutory systems
Without prejudice to point (c) of
Article 2(3), this Directive shall not apply to insurance
forming part of a statutory system of social security;
Article 4
Exclusion from scope due to size
1. Without prejudice to Articles 3 and
5 to 10, this Directive shall not apply to insurance
undertakings which fulfil all of the following conditions:
(a) the annual gross written premium income does not exceed
EUR 5 million;
(b) the total of the undertaking's
technical provisions, gross of the amounts recoverable from
reinsurance contracts and Special Purpose Vehicles as referred
to in Article 75, does not exceed EUR 25 million;
(c)
where the undertakings belong to a group, the total of the
technical provisions of the group defined as gross of the
amounts recoverable from reinsurance contracts and Special
Purpose Vehicles does not exceed EUR 25 million;
(d) the
business of the undertaking does not include insurance or
reinsurance activities covering liability, credit and suretyship
insurance risks, unless they constitute ancillary risks within
the meaning of Article 16(1);
(e) the business of the
undertaking does not include reinsurance operations exceeding
EUR 0.5 million of their gross written premium income or EUR 2.5
million of their technical provisions gross of the amounts
recoverable from reinsurance contracts and Special Purpose
Vehicles or more than 10% of their gross written premium income
or more than 10% of their technical provisions gross of the
amounts recoverable from reinsurance contracts and Special
Purpose Vehicles.
2. If any of the amounts set out in
paragraph 1 is exceeded for three consecutive years this
Directive shall apply from the fourth year.
2a. By way
of derogation from paragraph 1, this Directive shall apply to
all undertakings seeking authorisation to carry on insurance and
reinsurance activities whose annual gross written premium income
or technical provisions gross of the amounts recoverable from
reinsurance contracts and Special Purpose Vehicles are expected
to exceed any of the amounts set out in paragraph 1 within the
following five years.
2b. This Directive shall cease to
apply to those insurance undertakings for which the supervisory
authority has verified that all of the following conditions are
met:
(a) any of the amounts set out in paragraph 1 has
not been exceeded for the three last consecutive years; and
(b) any of the amounts set out in paragraph 1 is not
expected to be exceeded within the following five years.
As long as the insurance undertaking concerned carries on
activities in accordance with of Articles 143 to 147, the first
subparagraph shall not apply.
2c. Paragraphs 1 and 2b
shall not prevent any undertaking from applying for
authorisation or continuing to be authorised under this
Directive.
SUBSECTION 2 – NON – LIFE
Article 5
Operations
For
non-life insurance, this Directive shall not apply to the
following operations:
(1) capital redemption operations,
as defined by the law in each Member State;
(2)
operations of provident and mutual benefit institutions whose
benefits vary according to the resources available and in which
the contributions of the members are determined on a flat-rate
basis;
(3) operations carried out by organisations not
having a legal personality with the purpose of providing mutual
cover for their members without there being any payment of
premiums or constitution of technical reserves;
(4)
export credit insurance operations for the account of or
guaranteed by the State, or where the State is the insurer.
Article 6
Assistance
1.
This Directive shall not apply to assistance activity which
fulfils all the following conditions:
(a) the assistance
is provided in the event of an accident or breakdown involving a
road vehicle when the accident or breakdown occurs in the
territory of the Member State of the undertaking providing
cover;
(b) the liability for the assistance is limited to
the following operations:
(i) an on-the-spot breakdown
service for which the undertaking providing cover uses, in most
circumstances, its own staff and equipment;
(ii) the
conveyance of the vehicle to the nearest or the most appropriate
location at which repairs may be carried out and the possible
accompaniment, normally by the same means of assistance, of the
driver and passengers to the nearest location from where they
may continue their journey by other means;
(iii) if
provided for by the Member State of the undertaking providing
cover, the conveyance of the vehicle, possibly accompanied by
the driver and passengers, to their home, point of departure or
original destination within the same State;
(c) the
assistance is not carried out by an undertaking subject to this
Directive.
2. In the cases referred to in points (i) and
(ii) of paragraph 1(b), the condition that the accident or
breakdown must have happened in the territory of the Member
State of the undertaking providing cover shall not apply where
the beneficiary is a member of the body providing cover and the
breakdown service or conveyance of the vehicle is provided
simply on presentation of a membership card, without any
additional premium being paid, by a similar body in the country
concerned on the basis of a reciprocal agreement, or, in the
case of Ireland and the United Kingdom, where the assistance
operations are provided by a single body operating in both
States.
3. This Directive shall not apply in the case of
operations as referred to in point (iii) of paragraph 1(b),
where the accident or the breakdown has occurred in the
territory of Ireland or, in the case of the United Kingdom, in
the territory of Northern Ireland and the vehicle, possibly
accompanied by the driver and passengers, is conveyed to their
home, point of departure or original destination within either
territory.
4. This Directive shall not apply to
assistance operations carried out by the Automobile Club of the
Grand Duchy of Luxembourg where the accident or the breakdown of
a road vehicle has occurred outside the territory of the Grand
Duchy of Luxembourg and the assistance consists in conveying the
vehicle which has been involved in that accident or breakdown,
possibly accompanied by the driver and passengers, to their
home.
Article 7
Mutual undertakings
This Directive shall not apply to
mutual undertakings carrying on non-life insurance activities
and which have concluded with other mutual undertakings an
agreement which provides for the full reinsurance of the
insurance policies issued by them or under which the accepting
undertaking is to meet the liabilities arising under such
policies in the place of the ceding undertaking.
In
such a case the accepting undertaking shall be subject to the
rules of this Directive.
Article 8
Institutions
This Directive
shall not apply to the following institutions carrying on
non-life insurance activities unless their statutes or the law
are amended as regards capacity:
(1) In Denmark, Falcks
Danmark ;
(2) In Germany, the following semi-public
institutions:
(a) Postbeamtenkrankenkasse,
(b)
Krankenversorgung der Bundesbahnbeamten;
(3) In Ireland,
the Voluntary Health Insurance Board;
(4) In Spain, the
Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros.
SUBSECTION 3
- LIFE
Article 9
Operations and activities
For life insurance, this Directive
shall not apply to the following operations and activities:
(1) operations of provident and mutual-benefit institutions
whose benefits vary according to the resources available and
which require each of their members to contribute at the
appropriate flat rate;
(2) operations carried out by
organisations other than undertakings referred to in Article 2,
whose object is to provide benefits for employed or
self-employed persons belonging to an undertaking or group of
undertakings, or a trade or group of trades, in the event of
death or survival or of discontinuance or curtailment of
activity, whether or not the commitments arising from such
operations are fully covered at all times by mathematical
provisions;
(3) the pension activities of pension
insurance undertakings prescribed in the Employees Pension Act
(TyEL) and other related Finnish legislation provided that:
(a) pension insurance companies which already under Finnish
law are obliged to have separate accounting and management
systems for their pension activities, as from 1 January 1995,
set up separate legal entities for carrying out these
activities;
(b) the Finnish authorities allow in a
non-discriminatory manner all nationals and companies of Member
States to perform according to Finnish legislation the
activities specified in Article 2 related to this exemption
whether by means of ownership or participation in an existing
insurance company or group or by means of creation or
participation of new insurance companies or groups, including
pension insurance companies.
Article 10
Organisations, undertakings and institutions
As far as life insurance is concerned
this Directive shall not apply to the following organisations,
undertakings and institutions:
(1) organisations which
undertake to provide benefits solely in the event of death,
where the amount of such benefits does not exceed the average
funeral costs for a single death or where the benefits are
provided in kind;
(2) the "Versorgungsverband deutscher
Wirtschaftsorganisationen" in Germany unless its statutes are
amended as regards the scope of its capacity..
(2a) the
"Consorcio de Compensación de Seguros" in Spain unless its
statutes are amended as regards the scope of its activities
capacity.
 
Return to Index
Solvency ii Introduction (1) to (10)
Solvency ii Introduction (11) to (20)
Solvency ii Introduction (21) to (30)
Solvency ii Introduction (31) to (40)
Solvency ii Introduction (41) to (50)
Solvency ii Introduction (51) to (60)
Solvency ii Introduction (61) to (70)
Solvency ii Introduction (71) to (80)
Solvency ii Introduction (81) to (95)
Solvency ii Articles 1 to 10
Solvency ii Articles 11 to 20
Solvency ii Articles 21 to 30
Solvency ii Articles 31 to 39
Solvency ii Articles 40 to 49
Solvency ii Articles 50 to 62
Solvency ii Articles 63 to 71
Solvency ii Articles 72 to 85
Solvency ii Articles 86 to 99
Solvency ii Articles 100 to 125
Solvency ii Articles 126 to 142
Solvency ii Articles 143 to 159
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