Lloyds: Law and Practice
26.
REGULATION OF MEMBERS OF LLOYD’S OVERSEAS
AUTHORISATION IN THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AREA
26.1
Under the EU Insurance Directives and the Solvency II Directive the members of Lloyd’s taken together as “the association of underwriters known as Lloyd’s” are treated collectively as a single “insurance undertaking”.1 Lloyd’s itself is not referred to. The members are treated collectively for the purposes of EU insurance legislation as if they were a single, conventional, insurance company having its head office in an EEA member state. Because they are (for the purposes of the EU Insurance Directives, if not strictly as defined for the purposes of FSMA) “authorised” to carry on insurance business by the competent authorities of the UK as the home member state, and are therefore taken to be required by UK legislation to comply with the conditions specified in the Directives for such authorisation, they have a “single passport” to underwrite life, non-life and reinsurance business throughout the EEA, either under the right of establishment (of a “branch”, including an agency) or the freedom to provide (cross-border) services.2 Authorisation and financial supervision (including business carried on through branches in or cross-border to other member states) are matters only for the undertaking’s home state, i.e. where it has its head office, and not for any other member state.