Commencement of the Insurance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022

On 7 July a commencement order for the Insurance (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act 2022 (the Act) was signed by the Minister of Finance. First proposed in October 2021, the purpose of the Act is to address a number of insurance-related issues that have come to light since the Action Plan for Insurance Reform was published in December 2020.

The Act introduces a number of amendments to various pieces of domestic insurance legislation, including:

  • to the Solvency II Regulations to give proper effect to the operation of the Temporary Run-off Regime for UK authorised insurers 
  • to the Consumer Insurance Contracts Act (CICA) to introduce an obligation on insurers to disclose deductions from claims settlements to consumers and to grant additional powers to the Central Bank of Ireland (the CBI) to collect data about the deduction of state payments from settlements of certain insurance claims for the purposes of the National Claims Information Database
  • other technical amendments to CICA including to section 18(4) in relation to the effect of fraud on innocent co-insureds, and clarification on the scope of information to be disclosed under Article 16.

The Act also introduces a requirement for the CBI to submit a report to the Minister of Finance on the steps taken by it to regulate the practice of price walking.
 
Per the commencement order, the majority of the Act came into operation on 8 July 2022. However, section 7 and part of section 8 of the Act will come into operation on 1 October 2022. Section 7 of the Act deletes section 16(10) of CICA. Section 8 introduces a new section 16(A) to CICA which provides for additional duties of disclosure on both the insurer and consumer in relation to claims handling. 

The remainder of section 8 of the Act comes into effect on 1 January 2023. This will introduce a new section 16B to CICA, which will require insurers to disclose to consumers certain deductions made from claims settlements.

For further information or advice on any of the changes introduced by the Act, please contact Laura Scanlan, James Grennan, Laura Mulleady, Sinéad Lynch, Emma Martin any member of A&L Goodbody's Insurance & Reinsurance team.

Date published: 15 July 2022