When it comes to insurance, the Italians are a nation of ignoramuses. An investigation by Ivass shows that, if we were at school, ours knowledge of insurance products deserves a severely insufficient vote: on a scale of one to 10, approximately 2.
The study by the Supervisory Institute analyzes the knowledge and insurance behavior of Italians through an index: the threshold of sufficiency is 60 points and the figure relating to our general skills stops at 20,1.
It gets a little better if we restrict the analysis to the basic terms of the insurance world (prize, franchise e maximal), but even in this case the sufficiency remains a mirage: we don't go beyond an index of 40,6 points.
According to IVASS, knowledge is better in men than in women and in the North than in the South. Furthermore, those who live in medium-sized cities have more knowledge than those who live in large cities or small towns.
What matters, however, is the overall figure, which returns the image of a country unable to understand what it pays for. Not knowing the concepts of premium and deductible, in fact, exposes to serious risks in everyday life. Without these bases, for example, it is not possible to compare the convenience of the different policies. But above all, there is the danger of cashing in much less than expected in the event of an accident or necessity.
The situation is all the more serious because, further reports IVASS, it is widespread among Italians overconfidence in one's knowledge, as emerges from the comparison between the percentage of those who claim to have insurance knowledge and that of those who answer the questions correctly.
In detail, just over 60% of the interviewees stated that they were familiar with the concepts of premium, ceiling and deductible, but the percentage of those who knew how to correctly define the three concepts was just 13,9%. A quarter of the sample of those who think they know what is meant by premium think that it can also indicate the principal in the event of repayment.
Here are the definitions of the three terms convicts taken from Ivass glossary.
Award. The "pure premium" is the product between the frequency of claims and the average amount of damage. It represents the basic cost (industrial cost) of the insurance coverage, since it is an evaluation of the risk assumed by the insurance company on a statistical basis. To the pure premium must then be added the loadings of the companies and the taxes (the motor liability also includes a contribution to the National Health Service). In this way, the amount that the contractor must pay to the company is obtained.
Deductible. Contractual clause on the basis of which, against a lower premium, the policyholder undertakes to bear a part of the cost of the accident.
Maximal. Maximum sum agreed that the company is required to pay in the event of a claim. If the damages caused or suffered are greater than this sum, the difference remains the responsibility of the insured.
