The European Commission launched a new website, http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/admin-burdens-reduction/home_en.htm asking businesses to suggest ideas on how to reduce the administrative burdens they face.

The feedback provided by life insurance companies in Denmark recently led to improved national legislation for that particular sector:

EU law requires life-insurance companies to give to their customers (once a year) certain information about their insurances.

The old Danish secondary legislation implementing this provision required life insurance companies to send out the information by mail. The new Danish legislation gives insurance companies the option of providing the information through password protected websites instead of mails.

This has led to yearly costs savings of approximately 15 million Euro for the 68 Danish life-insurance companies concerned. The majority of savings are achieved through reduced printing and postage costs. The investment cost for the companies to make the information available on websites is estimated to be between 7 and 15 million Euro, meaning that net saving are achieved after only one or two years.