MOTOR VEHICLE INSURANCE (START OF A FACT-FINDING INVESTIGATION)
PRESS RELEASE
The Italian Competition Authority has initiated a fact-finding investigation on the motor vehicle insurance sector, in order to verify the real competitive dynamics which characterize this sector, with regards to the price trend from the beginning of the tariff liberalization (July 1994).
Substantial increases have concerned with not only the auto insurance sector, both the markets for the auto third party liability insurance (RC) and the other risks insurance (ARD), but also, and especially, with the area of the motor-bike third party liability insurance, starting from the enforcement of the Legislative Decree no. 360/1993, which made this insurance obligatory.
The Italian Association of Insurance Companies (ANIA) imputes the tariff increases to a deterioration in the technical management of the auto third party liability insurance sector. According to ANIA, this worsening arises from the negative trend of car accidents and from the increase in the cost of accidents, in particular because of personal injuries. On the contrary, the technical result of the other risks insurance sector is positive.
On the basis of these facts, the Authority deems opportune to ascertain the economic and technical reasons of the increases in the auto third party liability and other risks premiums. In relation to this sector, the Authority took a decision in 1994, after having found the existence of agreements among the principal insurance companies, which were aimed at fixing premium and other contractual conditions.
Further, the Authority's investigation will verify the existence of insurance companies' behaviours that have as their object or effect appreciable prevention, restriction or distortion of competition within the other risks insurance sector.