The European Commission has invited interested parties to give their views on commitments offered by Insurance Ireland to address competition concerns about access to its Insurance Link data-sharing system.

The commission had last year charged Insurance Ireland with breaking competition rules over its operation of the Insurance Link data-sharing system.

After an initial investigation, the commission said that its preliminary view was that the insurance group had restricted competition in the Irish motor-insurance market.

Barrier to entry

Insurance Ireland, whose membership includes companies accounting for 90% of the market, administers Insurance Link, but the commission took issue with certain conditions of access to the platform.

Delayed access

The EU watchdog preliminarily found that Insurance Ireland had “arbitrarily delayed, or in practice denied, access” to the system, which contains important information on the Irish market. It said that this had acted as a barrier to entry.

Insurance Ireland has offered a number of commitments to address the commission’s concerns. These include:

• To make access to the Insurance Link information exchange system independent from any membership to Insurance Ireland,
• To change the access criteria to Insurance Link, making them fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory, and applying them uniformly to all applicants, from Ireland and other member states,
• To establish a new Insurance Link application procedure with a defined timeline that will be handled by an independent application officer. Applicants who have been refused access will be able to appeal to an independent appeals body,
• To establish a cost and usage-based fee model, and to ensure that a fair, transparent, and non-discriminatory fee will be charged to Insurance Link users,
• To ensure that the criteria for becoming a member of the Insurance Ireland association will be fair, objective, transparent and non-discriminatory.

The commitments would remain in force for ten years, and would be monitored by a trustee who would report regularly to the commission.

Interested parties can submit their views within one month from the publication of a summary of the commitments in the Official Journal.