A study of the effectiveness of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) for risk mitigation in the insurance industry : a local perspective

Abstract

This research project sets out to analyse the effectiveness of the General Data Protection Regulation, a recently established European Union regulation, in the local insurance industry. This was done through a thorough literature review to analyse what has already been done and then with the use of a survey, which is a primary research tool, the target respondents were reached to gather information. The survey was aimed at clients and employees of insurance entities. The General findings are that effectiveness can be segmented into different factors and that they vary with regards to how confident the respondents are. Other findings include that the GDPR has increased costs and that its expectations are not as clear. These findings suggest that although the GDPR was effective in the insurance market, some issues about this regulation still exist. The conclusions reached are that the GDPR, fulfills its purposes however the implementation process of this regulation can be facilitated if better guidelines are issued for entities to follow in order to understand its expectations better and be able to follow the regulation and fulfil its purposes in the most efficient way. The implications of this conclusion is that the GDPR can be improved in the future and that overall as a regulation it is suitable to the different member states of the European Union including small states like Malta.