A Study on Regulation of Online Insurance: Focus on Insurance Comparison Website

• Main Authors: Yung-Cheng Lin, 林永正
• Other Authors: Hsin-Chun Wang
• Format: Others
• Language: zh-TW
• Published: 2018
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/ux3n5b

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 法律學研究所 === 107 === In recent years, more and more insurance undertakings and intermediaries have entered the market of online insurance. In addition to insurance undertakings and intermediaries, whose businesses have already been authorized by the competent authority, online platforms, which also provide online insurance services to the consumers, are emerging. The very typical business model of these online platforms is called “insurance comparison website”. Although insurance comparison websites bring convenience to the consumers, these websites raise several risks as well, and thus may violate the consumers’ rights and interests. Concerning the risks brought by insurance comparison websites, the competent authorities in European Union, United Kingdom, Italy and China have all implemented various regulatory tools upon the insurance comparison websites, which are worth for the competent authority in Taiwan to follow. Nevertheless, the enforcement of regulation will certainly restrain the business of insurance comparison websites, or even go against the innovation of the industry. Therefore, the competent authority should seek for the balance between the policies of consumer protection and innovation assistance. Because the insurance comparison website belongs to one kinds of online insurance, this paper first discusses the principles of regulation of online insurance. Second, this paper focuses on the business of insurance comparison website, and examines the categories, risks and legal relations of it. Third, this paper will introduce the status of regulation of insurance comparison website in different jurisdictions, including the attitudes of competent authorities, applicable laws, individual regulatory tools, etc. At last, this paper will return to the existing laws in Taiwan, targeting how these existing laws could be applied to insurance comparison websites. In this part, the existing laws in Taiwan are divided into “direct regulation” and “indirect regulation”, with each respectively discussed.