Insurance Daily | Dicembre 2023
Alfred Sauvy, late French economist and sociologist, used the metaphor of the clock to explain politics, represented by the second hand, the economy by the minute hand, demography and the environment by the hour hand, obviously the slowest, but equally inexorable.
Andrea Sironi, President of Bocconi and Generali, spoke at the AIPB Forum (Italian Private Banking Association) to remind us of the metaphor of Sauvy, famous for his essay “The diabolical economy”, written in 1977 and which proved to be extraordinarily prophetic.
The combination of the aging population, a birth rate and a percentage of graduates among the lowest in the EU, often also forced to expatriate, make Italy a country literally sitting on a time bomb.
The situation is even more critical when we talk about protection and social security: a) in Italy 53% of family wealth (equal to 10,900 billion euros) is made up of real estate; b) life expectancy is fortunately lengthening from year to year, but the public welfare system is collapsing; c) catastrophic events caused by climate change have increased by 52%.
In the face of these sadly unavoidable phenomena, the average premiums paid for insurance policies (excluding cars) in Italy is €300, in France €912, in Germany €1,131, in Holland €3,434 (ANIA data presented by Andrea Ragaini President of AIPB and VDG of Banca Generali).
To justify these phenomena, we hide behind the fig leaf of the poor financial education of Italians which leads them to keep liquidity in their current accounts in case of emergency rather than taking out non-life or life insurance policies or activating forms of supplementary pension.
But in a supply-driven market, what do the main players in the sector do? Most insurance companies and banks, fortunately not all, seem like sleeping beauties in the woods.
In fact, 2023 will end as the worst in the last twenty years for the life sector, with net collections that could be negative for the first time, going from approximately +15 billion to -15 billion euros.
This result was determined by both the anomalous increase in redemptions of life products recorded in 2023 also caused by the Eurovita affair, and the reduction in premium collections, from which in September 2023 the networks of financial advisors were suffering in particular (-22% the reduction in collection between September 21st and September 23rd, compared to -10% in the agency channel and -4% in bank and post office branches).
In the insurance business, what makes the difference is the knowledge and experience that financial advisors have of products with an average high level of complexity. Hence the importance of investing in professional skills and insurance consultancy tools to exploit the enormous development opportunities of life and non-life bancassurance that our country offers, as underlined by Maurizio Primanni CEO of Excellence Consulting.
It therefore seems unavoidable to invest in professional training and in communication and awareness-raising activities among the general public.
Considering that the hands of the clock are ticking inexorably, a question arises: if not now, when?
Nicola Ronchetti