The Insurance Business Act 1998

Abstract

The insurance sector was the last financial services sector in Malta to be incorporated within the financial services legal framework. For the other sectors in banking, stock exchange, investment as well as financial institutions, 1994 was the big year with the MFSC being set up and the relative sectors liberalised in line with international developments and EU legislation trends. Insurance had to wait until 1998 to have a new Insurance Business Act. The resulting Act is an enabling law that reflects the modern financial services approach Malta is taking today. Three are in fact the main aims : bringing regulation up to international standards, protecting the policyholder and other interested parties and attracting the establishment of new business.

In this thesis I shall attempt an overview of the Insurance Business Act 1998, looking at it as a product of its sources, local and international, with a view to establishing the framework within which our insurance sector now operates. To this end, I shall also include the various roles of the Malta Financial Services Centre as the Competent Authority envisaged in the Insurance Business Act 1998 as well as the role of the Minister of Finance and the Financial Services Tribunal. An analysis of the Insurance Business Act 1998 would not be complete without the inclusion of the MFSC Directives and Ministerial Regulations issued under it. Finally, I shall consider developments and approaches that already form part of the reality of insurance across Europe and the United Kingdom, and which, through one avenue or another, will affect us in the future.