The Insurance Mediation Directive requires that all insurance intermediaries should have sufficient financial capacity. The aim is to protect customers against the inability of an intermediary to transfer the premium to the insurer or to transfer the amount of a claim or return the premium to the insured. The implementation must take one of the following forms: the transfer of customers’ money through strictly segregated accounts; setting up a guarantee fund; payments to the intermediary being treated as payments to the insurer but payments to the intermediary not being treated as payments to the insured; intermediaries to have permanent financial capacity equal to 4 per cent of the sum of the annual premiums received, subject to a minimum of €15,000 (£9,400). The UK may adopt any combination of these four measures.