The principle of good faith in European and national insurance law
The principle of good faith in European and national insurance law

Summary/Abstract: In recent years, insurance markets have become more dynamic due to deregulation of insurance industry, globalization of insurance institutions, increased competition, technological progress, changing customer behavior and regulatory activity, which have greatly intensified in recent years in response to the global financial crisis. In the wake of the global financial crisis, additional measures aimed at enhancing consumer protection were passed in Europe. These include the Insurance Distribution Directive (IDD) and the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID II). The IDD contains numerous innovations compared with the Insurance Mediation Directive (IMD Directive 2002/92/EC), including a new conduct requirement for the insurance distributors to „always act honestly, fairly and professionally in accordance with the best interests of the customer“. The main concept behind this rule is that an insured shall only be able to make right decision when he is clearly informed on services offered (and their risks) and distributors can only provide services to clients in accordance with clients’ best interests once they became fully familiar with a kind of a customer that they are dealing with. Most of the EU Member States have a civil law system, with the general clauses of fairness and good faith. EU Member States shall implement the IDD into national law, therefore it is arguable that they should decide whether these standards are mere synonyms of the existing general clauses, or these standards are different from those clauses.

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