ABSTRACT
This chapter deals with issues relating to the law and practice of insurance contracts in the context of the attempt to develop a Single Market in Insurance. It examines the role of Ombudsman schemes in the UK and elsewhere in the European Union. These schemes have evolved to a point where they play an increasingly important role in dispute resolution within the insurance industry. Indeed, in the UK it is no exaggeration to say that in the context of consumer insurance the decisions of the Ombudsman are of much greater significance than the decisions of the courts. In the private sector most Ombudsman schemes have been in financial services - Insurance, Banking, Building Societies, Investment Management, Pensions, though the concept has been extended to Legal Services and, more questionably to Corporate Estate Agents. Private International Law deals with the conflicts between two legal systems which arise when any cross- border insurance contract is made.
