UK Insurers Comment on Achieving FSA Contract Certainty Goal

The Contract Certainty Steering Committee (CCSC), the London market’s insurance industry body responsible for leading the contract certainty initiative, welcomed the FSA’s announcement confirming that the industry has delivered on its objective of contract certainty (See previous article).

“Since December 2005, the industry has provided figures to the FSA on the number of contracts going through the market that are contract certain,” the bulletin noted. ” These figures have consistently demonstrated a sustained performance ahead of target, with most recent data showing that the industry has achieved 90 percent.”

Brit’s Chief executive, Dane Douetil, who chairs the CCSC as well as the London Market Reform Group (MRG), commented: “This is a victory for principle-led regulation. The FSA set us the challenge of radically improving our business practices to ensure contract certainty. The market has comprehensively shown that it can rise to such challenges and has delivered. It has been a solution by the industry, for the industry with the solution being commensurate with the risks faced.

“It demonstrates again that the UK leads the worldwide insurance market by clearly taking the lead and finding the solution to a global issue. The UK will benefit from the catalyst that contract certainty has created for further modernization of the industry, which will serve us well on the global stage. Our customers will be the ultimate beneficiaries.”

“Today’s news is a tribute to all the businesses that together make up the UK insurance industry. Their hard work – whether as insurers, reinsurers or brokers – ensured that we not only met, but beat our targets. We recognize the contribution of the FSA in helping to build momentum in the industry, but this result also shows the power of what can be achieved by the sector when all of its members pull together to make reform a reality.”

He cautioned, however, that “this is not the end of our work on contract certainty. We will continue to work with market firms to improve it further, and ensure that it continues to be embedded into day-to-day processes as a matter of course.”