Proposal to extend obligation to 2025 presented
The process for issuing the implementing decree is almost here. According to the previews reported by the online newspaper The Sun 24 Hoursthe text is ready and is only awaiting the final comparison between the competent ministries and associations, including Confindustria, artisan and trade associations, and IVASS, together with SACE. The comparison aims to finalize the last details before the official publication.
The decree could include a three-month transition period from its entry into force, to allow businesses to adapt to the new rules. However, it is possible that this timeframe could be extended, also in consideration of a amendment to the Omnibus decree proposed by Fratelli d’Italia, which suggests postpone the obligation to the end of 2025.
The role of SACE and insurance companies
The 2024 Budget Law provides that all productive activities, including industrial companies, banks and insurance companies, are obliged to take out catastrophic risk insurance policies. In the event of default, no economic sanctions are foreseen direct, but the loss of public incentives, a measure intended to stimulate the adoption of new coverage. The assets to be insured include land, buildings, industrial and commercial plants and equipment.
Failure by companies to comply with their insurance obligations will be taken into account in the allocation of grantssubsidies or financial benefits from public resources, including those provided for during events
calamitous and catastrophic.
Insurance companies may offer coverage either by directly assuming the entire risk, both in co-insurance, both in consortium form through a plurality of companies. In the latter case, the consortium must be registered and approved by the Institute for the Supervision of Insurance (IVASS) which evaluates its stability.
SACE will cover up to 50% of the risks assumed by insurance companieswith a ceiling of 5 billion euros.
IVASS Survey: Coverages and Exclusions
From ainvestigation into catastrophe risk coverage policiescarried out by IVASS, important aspects emerged regarding the covers and the exclusions. Specifically, the coverages are very varied: the composition of the catastrophic guarantees is heterogeneous both in the range of coverage offered and in the content of the same. Furthermore, the majority of the policies examined for SMEs offer coverage for earthquake, flood and inundation, landslide and flooding events, in retail policies, however, coverage for landslide or inundation is included by only three companies in that for flood and inundation, while it is excluded by seven companies.
The investigation revealed that No policy provides coverage for floodingcatastrophic event predicted by the Law 30 December 2023, n. 213.
The guarantees cover the direct and material damages to insured assets caused by catastrophic events; in some cases they also cover indirect damagessuch as increased costs or lower revenues resulting from business interruption or disruption of normal business operations.
Furthermore, several policies provide for the recognition of an advance on compensation in order to allow the insured to immediately start the restoration activities and specific exclusions are foreseen for each coverage (earthquake, floods and inundations, landslides and inundations) in addition to the common ones present in the basic guarantee (fire and damage to property).
