Over 30 years ago, when I was still scriptwriting for a living, a major life insurance company – not this one – asked me to write their entire training programme.

The United Kingdom Financial Services Authority, recognising certain weaknesses in the former regime and responding to criticisms in the Penrose report, has launched a major reform of the regulation of life insurance undertakings.

If the people dying as a result of a lack of clean drinking water were customers of major life assurance companies, there would perhaps already be a greater readiness to ignore the assessment criteria.

(34) Those Member States which so wish should be able to grant the same undertaking authorisations for the classes referred to in Annex I and the insurance business coming under classes 1 and 2 in the Annex to Council Directive 73/239/EEC of 24 July 1973 on the coordination of laws, regulations and administrative provisions relating to the taking up and pursuit of the business of direct insurance other than life assurance(8).

(23) Whereas the nature and social consequences of health insurance contracts justify the competent authorities of the Member State in which a risk is situated in requiring systematic notification of the general and special policy conditions in order to verify that such contracts are a partial or complete alternative to the health cover provided by the social security system; whereas such verification must not be a prior condition for the marketing of the products; whereas the particular nature of health insurance, serving as a partial or complete alternative to the health cover provided by the social security system, distinguishes it from other classes of indemnity insurance and life ...[+++] assurance insofar as it is necessary to ensure that policyholders have effective access to private health cover or health cover taken out on a voluntary basis regardless of their age or risk profile;

3. The technical account for life-assurance business shall be used for those classes of direct insurance which are within the scope of Directive 79/267/EEC and for the corresponding classes of reinsurance business.