The judgment criterion adopted by S&P on insurance companies, which led to a negative credit watch for Generali, "raises perplexity". This was stated by the president of Ivass Salvatore Rossi, heard in the Senate Industry Committee. “If the liabilities, the commitments, in Italy are around 30%, then – said Rossi at the end of the hearing – the assets in Italy must be of a corresponding amount. You cannot ask for a strong imbalance, otherwise you are asking a company not to be prudent".
Generali currently invests around 24% of its assets in securities of Italian issuers. In short, this criterion "seems to ignore the fact that a well-managed insurance company must guarantee an adequate balance between assets and liabilities" and "the assets must be invested in instruments that allow the commitments undertaken to be met without incurring losses". Therefore "the investment policies of the Italian insurance companies – remarked the president of IVASS – are overall consistent".
Perplexity also arouses, explained Rossi, the "choice of the times". For Rossi "Standard & Poor's is against the trend and against the time of the market".
