GIM10030 - Non-resident insurers: regulatory background: EEA insurers: ‘EEA firms’ with a branch or providing services in the UK: passport rights

An ‘EEA firm’ does not have to seek permission from the Financial Services Authority (FSA) under Part 4 Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 provided it has ‘EEA passport rights’ under Schedule 3 to the Act. An EEA firm is one which is a company effecting or carrying out contracts of general insurance which

• does not have its head office in the UK, and
• has received authorisation under Article 6 of the First Non-Life Insurance Directive from its Home State regulator in another EEA State, and seeks to carry on direct insurance activities in the UK, or
• has received authorisation under Article 2 of the Reinsurance Directive from its Home State regulator in another EEA State and seeks to carry on reinsurance activities in the UK.

The FSA receives notice from the EEA Home State regulator that it has given consent to the EEA firm to establish a branch or provide services in the UK, comprising permitted activities and in accordance with the insurance Directives. An ‘EEA State’ means the 27 members of the EU (apart from the UK) plus Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein, and by virtue of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (Gibraltar) Regulations 2001 (SI2001/3084), Gibraltar. Such a company is known in FSMA 2000 and the FSA’s sourcebooks made under it, and in this Chapter, as an ‘EEA Insurer’. The position in relation to Switzerland is described in GIM1230.

Reinsurance authorisation was added by the Reinsurance Directive 2005/68/EC of 16 November 2005. It came into force in the UK on 10 December 2007.

A small mutual whose receipts are below the level set out in the Directives (a ‘non-Directive insurer’) is outside the scope of these passport rights.