2011.12.05

Focus on lifelong learning in Insurance Social Dialogue

With today’s fast development of markets and products, lifelong learning is getting increasingly important. To hold on to your job you need to keep learning new things – and your employer has to make this possible. Therefore trade unions and employer organisations in the European insurance sector have agreed that lifelong learning is a priority.

The next step will be to spread good examples of how training can be a part of the business, by arranging conferences, seminars and producing materials. As trade unions, we would also like to see the principles of lifelong learning decided in collective agreements, and we are working towards that.

Another issue high on the agenda was the consequences of gender neutral insurance premiums, that will be adopted in Europe from December 2012, following a decision by the EU court. The Insurers of Europe lifted the issue that we further on might see prohibitions against the prizing of insurances based on other criterions, i.e. age or disability. What might this then lead to? According to the employers it could lead to difficulties to properly prize products, and therefore generally higher prizes.

Factbox: Social dialogue

At the social dialogue trade unions and employer organisations meet on European level to discuss common problems and projects. There are different dialogues for each sector, and NFU participates in the social dialogue both for the insurance sector and for the finance sector.