A decision that regulations governing British insurers are equivalent to those in the European Union could be among the first such post-Brexit decisions granted by EU policymakers, according to advisers to UK insurance bosses.

The move is expected to form part of an EU strategy to grant the City only limited access to its financial services markets via an 'equivalence' regime, under which EU regulators grant market access to non-EU firms if the country’s financial rules are deemed sufficiently similar to their own.