Insurance Europe has lent its support to the European Commission’s call to create a single market for data that combines information from public bodies, businesses and citizens.
For insurers, the EU body says that a greater availability of data could lead to improved risk monitoring and assessment, better customer experiences and increased fraud detection.
Insurance Europe also asserted that individuals should be able to provide access to their personal data to a much higher extent than is possible today, for example by granting third parties access to their driving data.
And the federation also supports the overall approach set out by the Commission in its Data Strategy, which recognises that sector-specific legislation on data sharing should only be introduced where market failures have been identified.
“The data economy can only be successful if the different players involved have suitable means available to them to share and exchange data,” Insurance Europe stated.
“Otherwise, important data will remain inaccessible, despite having the potential to reveal valuable new insights if re-used and recombined. At the same time, individuals and companies alike should have the choice to make their data available to others.”
Other important undertakings could involve the establishment of a framework on how to exchange data between companies from a technical viewpoint, to ensure an appropriate anonymisation of data to protect privacy.
Insurance Europe also welcomed the Commission’s objective of establishing more competitive markets for cloud computing services, as insurers have reported difficulties concerning the concentration of cloud service providers, which results in high levels of market power and an imbalance in the negotiating power between the parties.
This has been seen a particular challenge in the case of SMEs, and the concentration of market power among a few large cloud providers also contributes to the limited possibility to switch providers and to reject standard terms and conditions.
