This book explores the insurance sector’s potential role, influence, and impact on society in light of new environmental, social, and governance (ESG) concerns. Furthermore, it looks into how financial and technological innovations help reshape insurance regulation and business models. Unlike their predecessors, 21st century insurers have a growing impact on cross-sector service provision by making available to their clients a wealth of expert knowledge and experience in data analytics. The book delves into insurers’ transition from suppliers of products – consisting of risk coverage or investment opportunities – to providers of various services, and ultimately to solution providers by partnering with their clients so as to prevent failure, optimize their clients’ operations and help them excel in their economic sector. Insurance regulations and policies can be affected by various factors, such as changes in the economy, technological advances, and shifting consumer preferences, to name a few. Additionally, the insurance industry can have a significant bearing on the wider economy, making it important for the industry to operate within a framework of comprehensive regulations. This book includes a diverse set of theoretical, empirical, and policy-oriented chapters on particular aspects of new trends and wider analyses leading to a more systematic understanding of the industry’s socio-economic role. It offers a mixture of chapters from insurance academics and professionals from different countries, cultures, and scientific backgrounds. The methodologies used are diverse, including legal, sociological, historical, economic and financial as well as interdisciplinary analyses. The book has a global scope, including chapters of a more global nature and others addressing particular jurisdictions on different continents, including Europe, Asia and North America.

This volume examines the impact of and interplay between human rights and insurance. National, supranational and international legal instruments regulating the taking-up and pursuit of the business of insurance and reinsurance, (re)insurance distribution and the insurance contract often refer to or impact on human or fundamental rights. Courts are often faced with the sometimes seemingly impossible task of reconciling insurance core principles, practices and mind-sets with the principles and values stemming from human rights protection. In some cases, such as that of discrimination in insurance, this discussion has been going on for decades. Some deal with hot topics which have more recently emerged in light of developments stemming from technologic innovations ('InsurTech'). The first part of the book focuses on insurance and the right to equal treatment. Discrimination on the basis of factors such as gender or age is tackled, from the perspectives of the European Union, Canada and South Africa. The second part of the book highlights the very relevant role played by insurance in the upholding of the right to health, covering the United States of America, Africa and Brazil. The third part of the book explores InsurTech's manifold challenges upon the right to privacy, focusing on European Union. The fourth part tackles the threat posed by insurance on the right to life in general, but with a particular focus on the United Kingdom. Written by legal scholars and practitioners, the book offers international, comparative and regional or national perspectives, aiming to contribute to a more thorough and systematic understanding of the interactions between these two very different fields of law, providing the industry as well as the scientific community with insights from both sides of this seemingly difficult to transpose divide.