We tackle your challenges
Insurance companies need specialist legal support and advice more than ever before – at every level, from strategic consulting to routine drafting.
In an increasingly interconnected and transparent world driven by digitalisation and internationalisation, you have to satisfy rapidly changing customer perceptions and respond swiftly and efficiently to new regulation. You also face the challenge of InsurTech: harnessing new technologies and models while ensuring adequate legal protection for your business and your customers.
PwC’s dedicated Legal Insurance team is there to help insurers tackle the whole spectrum of challenges around legal, regulation and compliance.
Benefit from our experience
The PwC Legal Insurance team supports insurers and reinsurers with the entire range of challenges they face in their industry.
The key strength of our interdisciplinary team lies in providing advice and support at the very beginning, during the implementation phase, and at the very end of the life-cycle of a product or regulation.
We can draw on the entire spectrum of PwC’s knowledge and resources. This versatile know-how ensures you get best-in-class service, and gives us the flexibility to adapt to various business set-ups.
Find out more about our services here.
Our services
Authorisation/licensing
Whether you’re a Swiss direct insurer or reinsurer, you’re subject to Swiss supervision and must obtain approval from the Swiss supervisory authority before commencing direct insurance or reinsurance activities. Furthermore, if your registered office is outside Switzerland you are generally subject to supervision in respect of insurance activities conducted in or from Switzerland. We help you draft licence applications and coordinate with the regulator. If you’re in doubt as to whether a specific business is subject to supervision, we can analyse your model and, if necessary, draft enquiries to the regulator to clarify the requirements.
Compliance and international cross-border regulation
Once you have your licence, you have to comply with diverse laws and regulations at various levels. The more products you offer, the more complex the task of ensuring compliance with these requirements. We help you carry out a gap analysis of your entire insurance or reinsurance business model and your various activities – current and planned – to work out whether you comply. And we’ll draft, revise and amend specific contracts in compliance with the applicable regulations.
Optimisation
Once your insurance or reinsurance business is up and running, you’ll want to optimise as new external or internal factors and requirements arise. We’ll help you identify the potential for optimisation and advise you on how best to structure your operations. This includes a structuring memorandum and a structuring health check and gap assessment. If you also want support with implementation, we’ll define the services we deliver depending on your individual case.
Regulatory foresight support
To ensure you remain compliant in a rapidly changing regulatory landscape and are able to implement prospective changes in good time, we monitor upcoming insurance and reinsurance-related regulations in Switzerland and abroad and provide you with updates relevant to your business activities. If you wish, we can provide you with our Legal Regulatory Radar so that you can monitor upcoming regulation yourself and receive tailor-made impact assessments. In addition to regulatory updates we analyse the gaps between your business model and upcoming regulation, and carry out a high-level impact assessment to evaluate the applicability of upcoming regulatory initiatives (including yearly tailor-made impact reports). Our service also includes a helpline and analysis of regulatory questions.
Implementation support
Once you’ve identified and assessed upcoming regulation affecting your company, you have to make changes to your business activities, processes, documentation, etc., in good time. We can support you with implementation on the basis of your individual case. This may include an impact assessment of regulatory changes or creation of business requirement documents, policies and workflows.
InsurTech
Technology – particularly data analytics, artificial intelligence and blockchain − is transforming the insurance industry. The enormous digital potential offered by what we call InsurTech is now impacting the entire insurance value chain. The customers of today and tomorrow expect nothing less than a fully digital, customer-centric, flexible approach that responds to their latest needs. We help you digitalise the customer experience and harness technology to drive productivity and cost efficiencies. Our service includes support with creating a digital infrastructure and implementing cloud-based tools and platforms, helping you streamline the claims process (assessing claims through drone inspections, fraud detection, etc.), and assisting you with setting up all the relevant management, compliance and governance processes.
Insurance Intermediaries
Special rules apply for insurance intermediaries. Currently, non-tied insurance intermediaries must be listed in the public register of insurance intermediaries, while registration is voluntary for tied insurance intermediaries. If you are registered, you are obliged to comply with the registration requirements. We help you draft the application to join the register and carry out a gap analysis of your business model and your activities to determine whether you comply. Our service also includes monitoring upcoming regulation in Switzerland and abroad, providing you with updates relevant for your business activities and analysing the gaps between your business model and upcoming regulation.
Your benefits
- Comply with current legislation
- Anticipate regulatory developments and respond appropriately
- Stay ahead with our support and emerge stronger from challenges overcome
- Reduce costs and increase productivity and competitiveness
- Exploit the potential of InsurTech and develop a digital strategy that reflects current technical developments
Synopsis of the most important regulatory developments
The most important regulatory developments for the insurance industry, with comments on notable topics and changes, as well as the status quo.
Partial revision of the Insurance Supervision Act (ISA)
What the partial revision of the ISA means for insurance companies and insurance intermediaries.
Test of the Code of Conduct and expertise required under the Insurance Supervision Act
The revised ISA will require that Insurance Intermediaries must have sufficient knowledge of the Code of Conduct to perform their activities.
Legal’s Insurance Regulatory Radar
Since the global financial crisis, regulatory reform has changed the insurance and reinsurance industry dramatically.
Knowing the legal landscape means staying on the road to success.
Need legal support with any aspect of the insurance business?
We’d be delighted to talk to you.
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