ANIA Annual Meeting: the upcoming challenges for Italy

On 2 July ANIA, the National Association of Insurance Companies, held its annual meeting in Rome. Ministers Giorgetti (Economy and Finance) and Urso (Enterprise and Made in Italy) were present and IVASS' President Signorini also participated.

This was the first meeting of the Association chaired by President Giovanni Liverani (Generali), who took over from Bianca Maria Farina (Poste Italiane), president emeritus of ANIA since 2024.

In his opening speech, President Liverani highlighted the positive state of the Italian insurance sector, which last year collected premiums totalling EUR150 billion (up more than 16% compared to 2023). Of that total EUR110 billion was in the life sector and over EUR41 billion was in the non-life sector. With an average solvency ratio of 260%, 89 domestic companies and 92 EU companies, and approximately 300,000 employees, including in related industries, the insurance sector is attractive to both large institutional investors and retail savers.

But, according to President Liverani, the worrying figure of underinsurance remains. The Association has observed a tendency among Italians to “self-insure,” ie to seek forms of very short-term savings and protection.

All this in a context in which the four traditional insurance sectors (ie risk protection, pension and savings, prevention, and assistance), especially during the year that just ended, saw the insurance market committed to mitigating risks and acting as a stabilizing force in times of uncertainty.

This is particularly evident in the introduction of compulsory insurance against natural disasters, strongly supported by the government and the Ministries of Economy and Finance and of Enterprise and Made in Italy with the 2024 Budget Law. The market has acted quickly. In the first few months of this year it’s already recorded an increase in requests for coverage for products offered at low cost – a few hundred dollars a year for micro and medium-sized enterprises – and with the same coverage for all companies. This has made it easier for policyholders to compare products and for companies to compete.

To highlight the importance of the effects of the legislative intervention on the Italian insurance market, a recent press release from the Association, dated 7 July, informed the sector of the creation of a “cat-nat” insurance pool. It’s a consortium of insurance companies, which has already been joined by 75% of Italian companies. It will give member companies more efficient (and presumably less expensive) access to global reinsurance. According to the press release, the consortium, which has independent legal status, will in fact “neither assume risk nor capital, but will act in the name and on behalf of the member companies, negotiating and transferring risks to third-party reinsurers outside the consortium (including the public reinsurer Sace).”

The Association, through its President, also highlighted other challenges the country will face in the coming decades:

• revising the welfare system;
• expanding the contribution of the insurance sector;
• revising supplementary pension schemes and strengthening the National Healthcare System with a second and third insurance pillar;
• monitoring regulatory initiatives;
• simplifying the regulatory framework;
• stimulating technological innovation and modernizing industrial processes; and
• strengthening and modernizing the Association, both by promoting the adoption of new technologies and by focusing the Association's work on the added value that can be provided to its members.

These considerations were agreed by the ministers present and were also shared and endorsed by IVASS' President Signorini. In his report, President Signorini emphasized the Supervisory Authority's concern about the demographic trend in Italy and the need to quickly put the insurance sector at the service of the social security system to promote its sustainability.