Whistleblowers in the insurance sector

The Whistleblower Protection Directive was enacted with the aim of creating structured mechanisms and procedures for whistleblowing, which can both concern non-compliance with the law and attempts to circumvent it. The implementation of the Directive into the national legal order in the form of a whistleblower law is intended to increase the effectiveness of enforcement in areas of significant public interest. The financial sector, including insurance companies and banks – despite existing whistleblower protection regulations – are obliged, irrespective of the number of employees, to adequately implement whistleblowing procedures within the organisation. It is pointed out that the internal procedures already existing in the financial sector entity should be supplemented with the requirements resulting from the Whistleblowers Protection Act, while maintaining the differences resulting from sectoral legal acts, as well as the specifics and organisational culture of the entity. It is important that whistleblowing mechanisms are complementary and constitute a coherent system of reporting, management of whistleblowing, as well as protection of whistleblowers. The whistleblower protection system is implemented, in principle, in the interest of persons performing their paid work in a given organisation, but in fact, there should be no doubt that the protection of whistleblowers introduced by it is primarily in the interest of the entity obliged to implement an effective system guaranteeing timely follow-up as a result of receipt of a whistleblower report, as well as in the interest of its management. The new legislation imposes, and in fact extends, the obligation to implement a whistleblowing and follow-up procedure not only on insurance companies, but also on insurance agents and insurance and reinsurance brokers, which are legal persons. The purpose of this article is to discuss whistleblower regulation as it relates to entities in the insurance sector.