One size does not fit all

A diverse range of liability topics are discussed at EU level, including cross-border insurance and emerging technologies.

Liability insurance offers protection against lawsuits and similar claims brought by third parties. Insurance plays an important role in transferring liability risks and ensuring compensation through the swift handling of claims. However, insurance cannot provide unlimited cover or cover for every risk, since it is not possible to calculate the premiums that would be required to insure some risks or to offer unlimited cover for others.

Insurance Europe supports the European Commission’s ongoing efforts to strengthen the EU single market. Nevertheless, it is vital that the Commission recognises that a “one-size-fits-all” approach to liability insurance would be extremely hard to implement. This is due to the legislative, judicial, linguistic and cultural differences between member states.

In relation to liability for new and emerging technologies such as artificial intelligence, Insurance Europe firmly believes that the existing liability regime —  harmonised product liability (under the Product Liability Directive), complemented by national law covering all other areas of liability —  ensures a well-balanced, coherent and cohesive liability framework that provides legal certainty for all affected parties. New liability rules should only be created if concrete protection gaps can be empirically demonstrated, which Insurance Europe believes is currently not the case.