General principle

1. Member States shall ensure that, when carrying out insurance distribution, insurance distributors always act honestly, fairly and professionally in accordance with the best interests of their customers.

2. Without prejudice to Directive 2005/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council (14), Member States shall ensure that all information related to the subject of this Directive, including marketing communications, addressed by the insurance distributor to customers or potential customers shall be fair, clear and not misleading. Marketing communications shall always be clearly identifiable as such.

3. Member States shall ensure that insurance distributors are not remunerated or do not remunerate or assess the performance of their employees in a way that conflicts with their duty to act in accordance with the best interests of their customers. In particular, an insurance distributor shall not make any arrangement by way of remuneration, sales targets or otherwise that could provide an incentive to itself or its employees to recommend a particular insurance product to a customer when the insurance distributor could offer a different insurance product which would better meet the customer’s needs.