Under the EC Treaty an insurance operation established in Ireland can passport its services across all 27 member states of the EU, Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein either on a freedom of establishment basis or a freedom of services basis, subject to making the appropriate notifications to the Irish Financial Regulator.

This ability to passport insurance services together with a favourable corporation tax rate, a well educated English speaking labour force and a highly skilled pool of third-party service providers makes Ireland an attractive destination to establish a head office insurance undertaking.

In Dillon Eustace, the dedicated Insurance Group can assist any company (life, non-life, reinsurance and/or captive) who wishes to establish in Ireland through the authorisation process. This will include:

Reviewing the business proposal from a regulatory perspective
Arranging an initial meeting with the Financial Regulator
Assisting in the application process including reviewing the documentation to be submitted to the Financial Regulator; and
Filing the application and dealing with any queries raised by the Financial Regulator

Typically, it will take a period of up to 6 months from lodging an application to receiving authorization from the Financial Regulator.

In addition if a company is already established in Ireland and it wishes to passport its services outside of Ireland, Dillon Eustace can assist in this process including advising on how best to structure such arrangements from a corporate, regulatory and tax perspective to reviewing and filing the appropriate notification with the Financial Regulator.