Prof. Dr. Petra Pohlmann at the 38th Insurance Day in Münster. Source: private.
Took place on the weekend the 38th Münsterische Insurance day. The regulation of AI, sustainability in the financial markets and pandemic coverage were prominently debated. Participants were among others Karen Bartel, Head of Consumer Policy and Data Protection at GDV, BDVM Managing Director Hans-Georg Jenssen and lawyers like Stefan Perner, Institute for Civil Law and Civil Procedure Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business.
At the 38th Münster Insurance Day, which took place online on November 21, 2020, they spoke Karen Bartel, Head of Consumer Policy and Data Protection at the General Association of the German Insurance Industry eV, in view of the Commission’s proposal for the regulation of AI to be expected in the first quarter of 2021 to exhaust the existing regulatory framework first, to narrow the definition of AI and not to use the stronger one classified area of high-risk AI use. On the latter point she contradicted the own-initiative report of the European Parliament. For the well-filled regulatory pipeline, according to Bartel, it is to be hoped that soft law instruments will be preferred.
Also Tobias O. Keber, Professor for media law and media policy in the digital society at the Hochschule der Medien (HdM) and member of the management committee of the Institute for Digital Ethics (IDE) in Stuttgart, emphasized that a legal definition of AI had to be specifically developed. For digital ethics, understood as ethics applied to the digital world with intersections with information ethics, robot ethics, AI ethics, data ethics, etc., he saw customer trust as a central aspect for insurers. Insurers are definitely in certain areas, e.g. B. Personal insurance, to be assigned to the high-risk area. And how do ethics get into financial products? Self-regulation carries the risk of “ethics washing”, according to Keber. He therefore spoke out in favor of an obligation to label AI and a decidedly transparent and comprehensible design.
The topic of sustainability
Closely connected with ethical questions is the demand for sustainability that is placed on the financial markets. Monica Mächler, Member of the boards of directors of Zurich Insurance Group AG and Zurich Insurance Company AG, gave an overview of the numerous international agendas, agreements, recommendations and standards, of EU regulations and strategies, and of national developments. According to Mächler, sustainability is now a perspective from which all areas of life are viewed, summarized under “Environmental, Social and Governance”. Insurers would have to achieve sustainability on a qualitative and quantitative level. However, in order to maintain transparency and clarity, insurance regulation should remain focused on its protective purpose. It should not be mixed up with steering objectives that are not protected by insurance regulation, but can be pursued on the basis of other, cross-sectoral decrees.
Stefan Perner, Institute for Civil Law and Civil Procedure Law, Vienna University of Economics and Business, gave an overview of current issues relating to business closure insurance and the positions represented on this in literature and case law. Among other things, he dealt with the consequences of the differently designed references in the Infection Protection Act as well as the question of whether the lockdown represents a company closure in the sense of the conditions or whether this requires a risk from the company. Perner emphasized that the interpretation of the contracts in retrospect, with the knowledge of the Covid 19 pandemic, may lead to results that do not correspond to the understanding of the policyholders when the contract was concluded.
Discussed the future of pandemic coverage moderated by Oliver Brand, Chair of Civil Law, Private Insurance Law, Business Law and Comparative Law, University of Mannheim, Christian Bohm, Head of Corporate Insurance of the Freudenberg Group, Chairman of the Insurance Working Group of the Federal Association of German Industry and Member of the Board of Directors of the General Association of Insurance Companies, Oliver Hauner, Head of Property and Technical Insurance, Loss Prevention and Statistics at the German Insurance Association, and Hans-Georg Jenssen, Managing Director, Federal Association of German Insurance Brokers. It was agreed that solutions had to be found at both national and European level. Hauner emphasized that it was a question of generations; a system had to be developed that would still work 40 years from now. Böhm and Jenssen demanded that a solution had to be found as quickly as possible. “Role model”, says Jenssen, is the terror insurance company Extremus, a private public partnership. Compulsory insurance should not be introduced, but those who do not insure themselves should be denied state support, which intervenes on the second level – a point that was controversially discussed.
Barbara Eggenkämper, Head of the company history archive of Allianz Germany, took a look back on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of reunification. The development in the GDR from private insurance to national unified insurance and then back again was traced. Ms. Eggenkämper also explained the special role of the alliance after the reunification, but also went into the necessary legal framework and challenges of the currency reform.
Overall, despite the online format, there was a lively discussion with the audience, who could also meet in breakout rooms during the breaks. The next insurance day will take place on November 20, 2021. Further information on the subject of AI in insurance is available at www.idi.science. The Research Center for Insurance Münster provides current information on the effects of the corona pandemic in a monthly “Corona-Update” together.
Authors: Petra Pohlmann and Johanna Scheiper
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