Definitions

For the purposes of this Directive, the following definitions shall apply:

(1) ‘insurance undertaking’ means a direct life or non-life insurance undertaking which has received authorisation in accordance with Article 14;

(2) ‘captive insurance undertaking’ means an insurance undertaking, owned either by a financial undertaking other than an insurance or reinsurance undertaking or a group of insurance or reinsurance undertakings within the meaning of Article 212(1)(c) or by a non-financial undertaking, the purpose of which is to provide insurance cover exclusively for the risks of the undertaking or undertakings to which it belongs or of an undertaking or undertakings of the group of which it is a member;

(3) ‘third-country insurance undertaking’ means an undertaking which would require authorisation as an insurance undertaking in accordance with Article 14 if its head office were situated in the Community;

(4) ‘reinsurance undertaking’ means an undertaking which has received authorisation in accordance with Article 14 to pursue reinsurance activities;

(5) ‘captive reinsurance undertaking’ means a reinsurance undertaking, owned either by a financial undertaking other than an insurance or reinsurance undertaking or a group of insurance or reinsurance undertakings within the meaning of Article 212(1)(c) or by a non-financial undertaking, the purpose of which is to provide reinsurance cover exclusively for the risks of the undertaking or undertakings to which it belongs or of an undertaking or undertakings of the group of which it is a member;

(6) ‘third-country reinsurance undertaking’ means an undertaking which would require authorisation as a reinsurance undertaking in accordance with Article 14 if its head office were situated in the Community;

(7) ‘reinsurance’ means one of the following:

(a) the activity consisting in accepting risks ceded by an insurance undertaking or third-country insurance undertaking, or by another reinsurance undertaking or third-country reinsurance undertaking;

(b) in the case of the association of underwriters known as Lloyd's, the activity consisting in accepting risks, ceded by any member of Lloyd's, by an insurance or reinsurance undertaking other than the association of underwriters known as Lloyd's; or

(c) the provision of cover by a reinsurance undertaking to an institution that falls within the scope of Directive (EU) 2016/2341 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 1 );

(8) ‘home Member State’ means any of the following:

(a) for non-life insurance, the Member State in which the head office of the insurance undertaking covering the risk is situated;

(b) for life insurance, the Member State in which the head office of the insurance undertaking covering the commitment is situated; or

(c) for reinsurance, the Member State in which the head office of the reinsurance undertaking is situated;

(9) ‘host Member State’ means the Member State, other than the home Member State, in which an insurance or a reinsurance undertaking has a branch or provides services; for life and non-life insurance, the Member State of the provisions of services means, respectively, the Member State of the commitment or the Member State in which the risk is situated, where that commitment or risk is covered by an insurance undertaking or a branch situated in another Member State;

(10) ‘supervisory authority’ means the national authority or the national authorities empowered by law or regulation to supervise insurance or reinsurance undertakings;

(11) ‘branch’ means an agency or a branch of an insurance or reinsurance undertaking which is located in the territory of a Member State other than the home Member State;

(12) ‘establishment’ of an undertaking means its head office or any of its branches;

(13) ‘Member State in which the risk is situated’ means any of the following:

(a) the Member State in which the property is situated, where the insurance relates either to buildings or to buildings and their contents, in so far as the contents are covered by the same insurance policy;

(b) the Member State of registration, where the insurance relates to vehicles of any type;

(c) the Member State where the policy holder took out the policy in the case of policies of a duration of four months or less covering travel or holiday risks, whatever the class concerned;

(d) in all cases not explicitly covered by points (a), (b) or (c), the Member State in which either of the following is situated:

(i) the habitual residence of the policy holder; or

(ii) if the policy holder is a legal person, that policy holder’s establishment to which the contract relates;

(14) ‘Member State of the commitment’ means the Member State in which either of the following is situated:

(a) the habitual residence of the policy holder;

(b) if the policy holder is a legal person, that policy holder’s establishment, to which the contract relates;

(15) ‘parent undertaking’ means a parent undertaking within the meaning of Article 1 of Directive 83/349/EEC;

(16) ‘subsidiary undertaking’ means any subsidiary undertaking within the meaning of Article 1 of Directive 83/349/EEC, including subsidiaries thereof;

(17) ‘close links’ means a situation in which two or more natural or legal persons are linked by control or participation, or a situation in which two or more natural or legal persons are permanently linked to one and the same person by a control relationship;

(18) ‘control’ means the relationship between a parent undertaking and a subsidiary undertaking, as set out in Article 1 of Directive 83/349/EEC, or a similar relationship between any natural or legal person and an undertaking;

(19) ‘intra-group transaction’ means any transaction by which an insurance or reinsurance undertaking relies, either directly or indirectly, on other undertakings within the same group or on any natural or legal person linked to the undertakings within that group by close links, for the fulfilment of an obligation, whether or not contractual, and whether or not for payment;

(20) ‘participation’ means the ownership, direct or by way of control, of 20 % or more of the voting rights or capital of an undertaking;

(21) ‘qualifying holding’ means a direct or indirect holding in an undertaking which represents 10 % or more of the capital or of the voting rights or which makes it possible to exercise a significant influence over the management of that undertaking;

(22) ‘regulated market’ means either of the following:

(a) in the case of a market situated in a Member State, a regulated market as defined in Article 4(1)(14) of Directive 2004/39/EC; or

(b) in the case of a market situated in a third country, a financial market which fulfils the following conditions:

(i) it is recognised by the home Member State of the insurance undertaking and fulfils requirements comparable to those laid down in Directive 2004/39/EC; and

(ii) the financial instruments dealt in on that market are of a quality comparable to that of the instruments dealt in on the regulated market or markets of the home Member State;

(23) ‘national bureau’ means a national insurers’ bureau as defined in Article 1(3) of Directive 72/166/EEC;

(24) ‘national guarantee fund’ means the body referred to in Article 1(4) of Directive 84/5/EEC;

(25) ‘financial undertaking’ means any of the following entities:

(a) a credit institution, a financial institution or an ancillary banking services undertaking within the meaning of Article 4(1), (5) and (21) of Directive 2006/48/EC respectively;

(b) an insurance undertaking, or a reinsurance undertaking or an insurance holding company within the meaning of Article 212(1)(f);

(c) an investment firm or a financial institution within the meaning of Article 4(1)(1) of Directive 2004/39/EC; or

(d) a mixed financial holding company within the meaning of Article 2(15) of Directive 2002/87/EC

(26) ‘special purpose vehicle’ means any undertaking, whether incorporated or not, other than an existing insurance or reinsurance undertaking, which assumes risks from insurance or reinsurance undertakings and which fully funds its exposure to such risks through the proceeds of a debt issuance or any other financing mechanism where the repayment rights of the providers of such debt or financing mechanism are subordinated to the reinsurance obligations of such an undertaking;

(27) ‘large risks’ means:

(a) risks classified under classes 4, 5, 6, 7, 11 and 12 in Part A of Annex I;

(b) risks classified under classes 14 and 15 in Part A of Annex I, where the policy holder is engaged professionally in an industrial or commercial activity or in one of the liberal professions and the risks relate to such activity;

(c) risks classified under classes 3, 8, 9, 10, 13 and 16 in Part A of Annex I in so far as the policy holder exceeds the limits of at least two of the following criteria:

(i) a balance-sheet total of EUR 6 600 000;

(ii) a net turnover, within the meaning of Fourth Council Directive 78/660/EEC of 25 July 1978 based on Article 54(3)

(g) of the Treaty on the annual accounts of certain types of companies ( 2 ), of EUR 13 600 000;

(iii) an average number of 250 employees during the financial year.

If the policy holder belongs to a group of undertakings for which consolidated accounts within the meaning of Directive 83/349/EEC are drawn up, the criteria set out in point (c) of the first subparagraph shall be applied on the basis of the consolidated accounts.

Member States may add to the category referred to in point (c) of the first subparagraph the risks insured by professional associations, joint ventures or temporary groupings;

(28) ‘outsourcing’ means an arrangement of any form between an insurance or reinsurance undertaking and a service provider, whether a supervised entity or not, by which that service provider performs a process, a service or an activity, whether directly or by sub-outsourcing, which would otherwise be performed by the insurance or reinsurance undertaking itself;

(29) ‘function’, within a system of governance, means an internal capacity to undertake practical tasks; a system of governance includes the risk-management function, the compliance function, the internal audit function and the actuarial function;

(30) ‘underwriting risk’ means the risk of loss or of adverse change in the value of insurance liabilities, due to inadequate pricing and provisioning assumptions;

(31) ‘market risk’ means the risk of loss or of adverse change in the financial situation resulting, directly or indirectly, from fluctuations in the level and in the volatility of market prices of assets, liabilities and financial instruments;

(32) ‘credit risk’ means the risk of loss or of adverse change in the financial situation, resulting from fluctuations in the credit standing of issuers of securities, counterparties and any debtors to which insurance and reinsurance undertakings are exposed, in the form of counterparty default risk, or spread risk, or market risk concentrations;

(32a) ‘qualifying central counterparty’ means a central counterparty that has been either authorised in accordance with Article 14 of Regulation (EU) No 648/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 3 ) or recognised in accordance with Article 25 of that Regulation;

(33) ‘operational risk’ means the risk of loss arising from inadequate or failed internal processes, personnel or systems, or from external events;

(34) ‘liquidity risk’ means the risk that insurance and reinsurance undertakings are unable to realise investments and other assets in order to settle their financial obligations when they fall due;

(35) ‘concentration risk’ means all risk exposures with a loss potential which is large enough to threaten the solvency or the financial position of insurance and reinsurance undertakings;

(36) ‘risk-mitigation techniques’ means all techniques which enable insurance and reinsurance undertakings to transfer part or all of their risks to another party;

(37) ‘diversification effects’ means the reduction in the risk exposure of insurance and reinsurance undertakings and groups related to the diversification of their business, resulting from the fact that the adverse outcome from one risk can be offset by a more favourable outcome from another risk, where those risks are not fully correlated;

(38) ‘probability distribution forecast’ means a mathematical function that assigns to an exhaustive set of mutually exclusive future events a probability of realisation;

(39) ‘risk measure’ means a mathematical function which assigns a monetary amount to a given probability distribution forecast and increases monotonically with the level of risk exposure underlying that probability distribution forecast;

(40) ‘external credit assessment institution’ or ‘ECAI’ means a credit rating agency that is registered or certified in accordance with Regulation (EC) No 1060/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council ( 4 ) or a central bank issuing credit ratings which are exempt from the application of that Regulation.