A law created to cover the damage but which risks provoking as many. For some time now it was that a legislation was expected that would protect the state of the strong disbursement to cope with the effects of natural catastrophes such as floods, earthquakes, droughts, landslides. The “parachute” arrived with the 2024 budget law which introduced the obligation for all companies with registered office in Italy to sign insurance policies covered with the damages deriving from the disasters. The deadline for the adjustment, initially set at 31 December 2024, was postponed, with the Milleproroghe decree, to March 31st. Therefore by the end of the month Italian companies will have to enter into compulsory insurance coverage, limiting dependence on public aid. The goal is to protect the company assets with a financial protection mechanism, which reduces the economic impact of natural disasters and distributes the risk between business, insurance companies and state. So far everything is fine, only that the burden of companies is important and there is the risk of speculative phenomena.
But before going into the peculiarities of the law, It is good to have an idea of the phenomenon we are talking about. According to the 2025 Climate and Catastrophe Insight report by Aon, leader at a global level in insurance and reassuring intermediation and in the consultancy for risk management, in 2024, for the fifth consecutive year, the losses insured globally exceeded one hundred billion dollars. Last year 18,100 people lost their lives due to natural risks, especially heat waves and floods. In Italy, insured damages reached an unprecedented level, exceeding six billion euros. Of these, 5.5 billion were caused by extreme atmospheric events, while only floods in Emilia-Romagna and Tuscany caused losses for 800 million euros. These data were presented by Maria Bianca Farina, president of the Association for Insurance Companies (Ania), at the 2024 of the organization. Italy is one of the European countries with greater seismic risk: about 40 percent of civil homes are found in medium or high danger areas. In addition, it is particularly fragile also from the hydrogeological point of view with almost 95 percent of Italian municipalities at risk of landslides, floods and coastal erosion.
Overall over 80 percent of the houses are exhibited at a medium-high risk level for at least one of these phenomena. According to the IAAN report, Italy remains “under-the-assured”. Only 6 percent of 35.3 million housing units have the protection of a policy. But the situation of companies is also critical: just 5 percent of the 4.5 million activities have adequate coverage, with significant differences based on the company size (4 percent of micro companies, 19 percent of small ones, 72 percent of medium and 97 percent of the large). In the case of natural catastrophes, the consequences so far have remedied mainly on public budgets. Often he has resorted to European funds. In 2024, 378.8 million euros for Emilia-Romagna arrived from the European Union Solidarity Fund following the damages of the floods of May 2023 and another 67.8 million for Tuscany for floods of October and November 2023 damaged infrastructures, the protection of cultural heritage.
The decree then brings to fill a protective deficit, however downloading costs on companies. Although not foreseen pecuniary sanctions for those who do not ensure, the defaulting companies lose the right to contributions, subsidies or financial concessions linked to public resources. This means that, in the case of destructive events such as earthquakes or floods, the productive realities without insurance coverage will not be able to benefit from state aid, thus finding themselves having to face the costs of the damage suffered alone. However, compulsory insurance means for companies to charge of an important burden. An analysis of the Study Center of Unimpresa highlighted that small and medium -sized companies with an operational headquarters of about 500 square meters and 15 employees will pay between 1,500 and three thousand euros per year in the low risk areas, between three thousand and six thousand euros in the medium -risk and between six thousand and 12 thousand euros in the high -risk areas (such as the seismic ones or subject to frequent floods). Large companies with multiple establishments and greater risk exposure could exceed 30 thousand euros per year of insurance premium. An important aspect concerns franchises, which will not be able to exceed 15 percent of the damage.
This means that, in the event of a claim, the manufacturer will still have to cover a share of the losses. Making an example: if a company suffers damage for 500 thousand euros due to a flood, with a policy covering 85 percent of the damage, it will still have to support a direct disbursement of 75 thousand euros. There is also the problem of the little time that entrepreneurs have available to adapt. The CNA, the artisan association, had asked for a postponement. «Impossible in less than a month, stipulating four million policies, which are the number of companies concerned. In addition, the IVASS portal cannot be available, the Insurance Supervisory Institute, introduced by the legislator in the annual competition law, to compare the offers “notes the craftsmen. This exposes risks of speculation. For SMEs it will be difficult to extricate themselves between the offers and the risk of weighing down the budgets is inevitable.
