The European Union's Proposed Equality and Data Protection Rules: An Existential Problem for Insurers?

Insurance companies use personal data to price personal insurance risks. Innovative data‐collection and processing strategies, including big data, offer the potential for better analysis of traditional risks and for markets in new types of insurance. This paper examines the potential for EU data protection and anti‐discrimination legislation – both existing and proposed – to threaten not only this potential but also the traditional personal insurance business. It offers a strategy based upon codes of practice and technological innovation that would allow insurers to protect their business and to innovate while meeting the concerns of legislators about discrimination and data protection.