Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency Council sets out insurance financial literacy guidelines with three-year planning and reporting requirements

The Croatian Financial Services Supervisory Agency (Hanfa) Council discussed new Guidelines to strengthen citizens’ financial literacy in insurance, alongside ongoing preparations to implement the European Insurance Recovery and Resolution Directive (IRRD) and regional work in Central and Eastern Europe aimed at integrating and strengthening capital markets. The insurance financial literacy Guidelines set conduct standards intended to harmonise practices and raise users’ insurance knowledge, built around transparent communications, impartiality towards service providers, comprehensive information and fact-based accuracy. They prohibit marketing messages and the prioritisation of particular services within literacy activities, and direct education towards insurance basics, the right to choose, insurance procedures and users’ rights. Insurance companies will be instructed to maintain at least three-year budgets and activity plans and to provide periodic reporting to Hanfa on activities undertaken under the Guidelines. On IRRD, Hanfa noted that the Directive must be transposed into Croatian legislation by the end of January 2027 and is intended to harmonise recovery and resolution rules for insurance and reinsurance companies, enabling earlier and cross-border intervention where needed. For the Central and South-Eastern Europe initiative involving Bulgaria, Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, North Macedonia, Slovakia and Slovenia, memoranda of understanding have already been signed by ministries and stock exchanges, with regulator MoUs and the launch of a Technical Support Instrument project expected in the coming period.