General Insurance Article - PwC and ABI comment on Governments post Brexit White Paper

 Andrew Gray, head of brexit for PwC, commented: ''The Government has changed its preferred course on financial services. The so called mutual recognition model has been dropped, instead access would be built on improving the EU's current equivalence arrangements.

 "There are a number of issues with the EU's current approach to equivalence - most notably that it does not cover key activities such as insurance and deposit taking. Equivalence decisions can also be reversed at short notice and the process can be unpredictable at times. The Government is proposing that these issues are addressed by the EU by covering all key sectors and by making the equivalence process more predictable for businesses.

 "Despite this being a credible proposal, businesses should know that there is still a risk of no deal and therefore should continue to plan for this scenario."

 Huw Evans, ABI Director General, said: “Publication of the White Paper is an important step in the Brexit negotiations. Whatever the final outcome, the insurance industry is too important to be a rule taker. Having to comply with financial regulations we have no say over would be the worst possible scenario for our world leading insurance sector, so we will look to the Government to negotiate a better outcome than this.”