Impacts of the re-codification of insurance distribution legislation with a focus on the position of the insurance intermediaries, customer protection and the supervisory povers of the Czech National Bank

Impacts of the recodification of the legal framework on insurance distribution with particular regard to the position of insurance intermediaries, customer protection and the supervisory powers of the Czech National Bank Abstract The regulation of insurance intermediation in the Czech Republic was, in the period between 2005 and 2018, governed by the Insurance Intermediaries Act, which represented the transposition of the Insurance Mediation Directive. The national framework thus largely reflected the succinct Union acquis, the objective of which was to harmonise the conditions for the pursuit of insurance intermediation activities across the internal market. This approach, however, entailed a number of deficiencies: the impossibility of imposing sanctions for infringements of the obligation to act with due skill, care and diligence; the lack of discretion on the part of the Czech National Bank to assess the good repute of insurance intermediaries; registrations without temporal limitation; and the possibility of parallel registrations with the same intermediary. The subsequent legislative framework, established by the Act on the Distribution of Insurance and Reinsurance, has remedied the majority of these deficiencies. As from 1 December 2018, a process of re-registration was initiated, which resulted in...