Organizations in the Spanish Insurance Market
Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds
This is the main Spanish organization that regulates and supervises insurance activity in Spain. It reports to the Secretary of State for Economy and Business Support, attached to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation.
Its functions are, in brief:
- To control the access, exercise and expansion of private insurance and reinsurance activity, and control the requirements to be met by the administrators and partners of the companies that carry out this kind of activity.
- To control mergers, groupings, portfolio transfers, transformations and other operations between insurance companies.
- The prior control for access to insurance mediation activity and pension fund management bodies, the ordinary oversight of the exercise of such activity and the performance of other supervisory functions.
- The inspection and monitoring of insurance company activities and those of the aforementioned persons.
Of particular importance is its consumer protection function, by attending to and resolving claims and complaints, monitoring market transparency and the other functions attributed to it by the regulations on the protection of financial services customers.
It also responds to queries on private insurance and reinsurance, mediation, pension plans and funds.
Insurance Compensation Consortium (ICC)
This is a public business entity attached to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, through the Directorate General of Insurance and Pension Funds.
The ICC acts:
- As a direct insurer, when no private entities are involved.
For example, in the field of automobile liability insurance, it assumes the mandatory coverage of vehicles that are not accepted by insurance companies. - As a guarantee fund, when certain circumstances arise, such as lack of insurance, insolvency of the insurance company, and so on.
Its best-known role is the handling of extraordinary risks, in other words, those that cannot be covered by normal insurance The Consortium compensates for damage caused by certain natural phenomena and certain events, provided that a policy has been taken out in one of the business lines where the prevailing legislation establishes the obligation to include in its coverage a guarantee against these risks.
Damages due to extraordinary events are usually excluded from the “standard” coverage of an insurance policy, a small part of the price is destined to the economic fund managed by the ICC and used for these special cases.
However, work also extends to other fields of activity such as:
- Automobile
- Combined agricultural insurance
- Environment
- Settlement Activity
https://www.consorseguros.es/web/inicio
AGROSEGURO
This is the acronym for the Agrupación Española de Entidades Aseguradoras de los Seguros Agrarios Combinados, S.A., the entity that manages the so-called combined agricultural insurance. This is a system of coverage that exists in Spain to protect agricultural crops and livestock against certain risks, especially climatic risks.
UNESPA
This is the Asociación Empresarial del Seguro, which represents the interests of the vast majority of Spanish insurance companies. Its functions are to represent, manage and defend the professional, economic and social interests common to the associated companies before all kinds of people, bodies, public or private, national and international organizations.
It is also responsible for representing the collective labor interests of its members, providing other additional services to its members, collaborating with institutions in matters affecting insurance and, in general, carrying out any function necessary to defend the interests of the insurance sector.