The Insurance Supervisory Institute, together with the Antitrust and Electricity Authorities, has opened an investigation "on 20 energy operators and 13 insurance companies" for the phenomenon of combined offers, i.e. insurance policies combined with contracts for the supply of electricity, gas and water. This was revealed this morning in Rome by Salvatore Rossi, president of IVASS, during his speech at the annual meeting of the Association of Insurance Companies. The name of the operation is “You are insured and maybe you don't know it”. The investigation was launched in April.
The combined offers, spread throughout the world, in Italy involve more than 15 million citizens, who are offered over 1.600 different types of "packages" deriving from commercial agreements between insurance companies and economic operators of various kinds. The trend involving energy companies involves 2 million policyholders and over 33 million euros in premiums.
CHANGE THE RULES ON IVASS FINES
Furthermore, according to Rossi, it is necessary to amend the legislation governing the sanctions imposed by IVASS on insurance companies, "because their effectiveness is almost nil" and "not paying them is the rule", to the point that in 2014, "in the face of provisions for around 4 million, less than 300 thousand euros flowed into the Treasury's coffers”.
REGULATION FOR SUPERVISORY BODY DELAYED BY OVER A YEAR
Rossi then underlined that the government regulation for the creation of the supervisory body for insurance intermediaries is more than a year late, a solution similar to the one previously launched for financial advisors with the register supervised by Consob.
“The government regulation that was supposed to implement the legal provision has never been issued, although a year has passed since the fixed deadline – remarked Rossi -. To date, it is not possible to predict outcomes and times. It seems to me a case study of those legislative provisions whose regulatory implementation is postponed to the Greek calends in a climate of uncertainty and obstructionism by bearers of private interests, moreover misunderstandings".
THE IVASS RECIPE FOR CONSUMERS
In his speech, Rossi also illustrated IVASS's philosophy for consumer protection: “We must make an effort to understand consumer choices in a world of continuous technological and financial innovations which present not only risks but also opportunities – he said -. The best consumer protection, in addition to healthy competition, lies in a community of interests, both of the public authorities to bridge the information asymmetries on the market, and of well-managed companies to safeguard their reputation in the long term".
