In its answer to question 1971, the Commission emphasized that there “must be a sufficient temporal and factual connection between the insurance coverage and the provision of the good or service by the intermediary as part of his or her principal professional activity” in order for an insurance product to be considered as being complementary to a good or service. This point was reiterated in the answer to question 2602, where the Commission further stated that “ancillary insurance intermediaries are entitled to offer insurance products (…) which are complementary to a good or service they provide”. Following the context in which question 2602 was submitted, this point appeared to have been made in order to stress that an ancillary insurance intermediary cannot offer insurance coverage in relation to goods and services of other actors such as competitors, irrespective of whether such goods or services are identical or similar to those provided by the ancillary insurance intermediary’s own services and goods. An ancillary insurance intermediary placing goods and/or services on the market (hereafter “Provider”) may choose to market and distribute the same goods and services to end-customers through resellers, agents and/or distributors (hereafter “Resellers”) for commercial purposes (e.g. accessing foreign markets, targeting certain customer categories, etc.). Those Resellers may in this case be prevented from offering complementary insurance coverage to their customers (“Indirect Customers”) together with the good and/or service, in part due to : - the impossibility for the ancillary insurance intermediary to authorize further distribution of the insurance product by its Resellers, - the impossibility or unwillingness from Resellers to meet the conditions necessary to become ancillary insurance intermediary in their own right. Those Indirect Customers may nonetheless be interested in accessing the same insurance product together with the product sold via the Reseller, as it can be enjoyed by the customers of the Provider acting as an ancillary insurance intermediary (“Direct customers”). In particular where the insurance products characteristics are strongly influenced by the type of good and service provided, with little equivalent on the market. The question is therefore whether a Provider acting as an ancillary insurance intermediary can offer insurance products to Indirect Customers purchasing via a Reseller the goods and/or services placed on the market by the Provider, it being considered that: - the purchase of an insurance product directly from the Provider acting as an ancillary insurance intermediary would remain preconditioned by the purchase of the corresponding goods and services from a Reseller, therefore maintaining a “temporal connection” with the insurance coverage, - the Provider acting as an ancillary insurance intermediary, while not selling the good and/or service directly to the Indirect Customer, remains the “initial” or “original” provider of the goods and services provided as placing it on the market, which points to a “factual connection” with the insurance coverage, - the offer of the insurance product would still have to be made directly by the Provider acting as an ancillary insurance intermediary, through a dedicated purchase canal which complies with all the other requirements of the insurance distribution regulation (and in particular precontractual information of the Indirect Customer). Illustrative example : - A company develops and operates time-limited access rights to controlled activity zones (“Company”). These access rights are sold both directly to end-customers and indirectly through independent resellers for commercial and cross-border distribution purposes. - In connection with the use of these access rights, the Company acts as an ancillary insurance intermediary in order to offer insurance coverage product notably covering the costs of emergency assistance in the event of accidental injury occurring during the authorized activity period. - While customers purchasing access rights directly from the Company may subscribe to this insurance at the point of sale, customers acquiring access rights through resellers cannot be offered the insurance by those resellers due to regulatory constraints. The Company therefore considers offering the insurance directly to such end-customers, with the coverage remaining strictly linked to the use of the access rights initially provided by the Company through the reseller.

The question has been rejected as the issue it deals with is already sufficiently clear from Q&A 1971. In fact, Q&A 1971 clarifies that ancillary intermediaries may only offer insurance complementary to a good or service they provide and that there must be a sufficient temporal and factual connection between that good or service and the insurance coverage. In the business plan described, the factual connection is argued to exist with a good or service not provided directly by the intermediary (but by a reseller). We are quoting the relevant part of Q&A 1971:

“It follows that ancillary insurance intermediaries are entitled to offer insurance products, other than life insurance and liability insurance products, which are complementary to a good or service they provide.“