Cooperation between Insurance Undertakings and Natural Persons versus Insurance Outsourcing

Abstract

The present article discusses the qualification of cooperation between insurance undertakings and natural persons who are not their employees in the context of insurance outsourcing regulations. With regard to such cooperation, there are two issues to be resolved. Firstly, in which cases should such cooperation be considered outsourcing within the meaning of the regulations? Secondly, if so, in which cases do we deal without sourcing of core or important activities? If the cooperation is recognized as outsourcing and is assumed to be outsourcing of core and important activities, it leads to certain consequences resulting from law. Therefore, the resolution of these issues is of key importance for the insurance sector, as insurance undertakings widely cooperate with non-employees, especially in the area of claims settlement. The author concentrates on the premise of the nature of cooperation between an insurance undertaking and a natural person consisting in the assessment whether an activity or function is transferred 'outside', which is an essential criterion of outsourcing. Another criterion in this context is the 'intensity' of the cooperation, namely its permanent or temporary nature. Moreover, other criteria relevant to the assessment of outsourcing of core or important activities have been analysed, such as the material criterion (type of outsourced activities) and the criterion of the scale of cooperation.