An authorisation pursuant to Article 14 shall be valid for the entire Community. It shall permit insurance and reinsurance undertakings to pursue business there, that authorisation covering also the right of establishment and the freedom to provide services.

Subject to Article 14, authorisation shall be granted for a particular class of direct insurance as listed in Part A of Annex I or in Annex II. It shall cover the entire class, unless the applicant wishes to cover only some of the risks pertaining to that class.

The risks included in a class shall not be included in any other class except in the cases referred to in Article 16.

Authorisation may be granted for two or more of the classes, where the national law of a Member State permits such classes to be pursued simultaneously.

In regard to non-life insurance, Member States may grant authorisation for the groups of classes listed in Part B of Annex I.

The supervisory authorities may limit authorisation requested for one of the classes to the operations set out in the scheme of operations referred to in Article 23.

Undertakings subject to this Directive may engage in the assistance activity referred to in Article 6 only if they have received authorisation for class 18 in Part A of Annex I, without prejudice to Article 16(1). In that event this Directive shall apply to the operations in question.

In regard to reinsurance, authorisation shall be granted for non-life reinsurance activity, life reinsurance activity or all kinds of reinsurance activity.

The application for authorisation shall be considered in the light of the scheme of operations to be submitted pursuant to Article 18(1)(c) and the fulfilment of the conditions laid down for authorisation by the Member State from which the authorisation is sought.