The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) published today a Staff Paper setting out a four-pillar framework to help supervisory authorities apply behavioral insights in their conduct of business supervision, with the ultimate goal of improving consumer outcomes.
Understanding how consumers make financial decisions in practice can help explain why some remain underinsured against natural catastrophes, fail to plan adequately for retirement or buy insurance products that do not meet their needs. Insights that provide a more realistic picture of consumer behavior can help supervisors develop more effective policy and supervisory measures, leading to better consumer outcomes.
The paper sets out four building blocks for integrating behavioral insights into supervisory work:
- Defining and assessing consumer outcomes, focusing on consumers’ financial health,
- Understanding consumer behavior in practice, examining how consumers make decisions and the factors that influence their choices,
- Considering interventions at different levels, including market, product and distribution level rather than solely targeting changes in the behavior of individuals,
- Combining evidence-gathering methods, using appropriate research methods to understand behavior and assess the effectiveness of interventions.
The paper illustrates the proposed approach through three examples from EIOPA’s work: the natural catastrophe insurance protection gap, credit protection insurance sold through banks, and the sales process for insurance-based investment products.
Background
This paper represents the views of EIOPA’s staff views and forms part of the authority’s broader efforts to promote more outcome-focused regulation and supervision. It is intended as a practical guide for informational purposes and does not impose any new requirements on supervisors.
- Publication date
- 27 October 2026