The Autorità Garante della Concorrenza e del Mercato initiated an investigation against the Associazione Nazionale fra le Imprese Assicuratrici (ANIA), which originates from a communication sent by ANIA to the Authority with regard to a "fraud detection project” in life (pure risk) and non-life insurance. Among other things, the project envisages creating databases and developing common algorithms to determine indicators of the risk of fraud that insurance companies could use both in the settlement and underwriting phases. While being fully aware of the costs that the phenomenon of fraud can cause for the industry and for policyholders, the Italian Competition Authority believes that ANIA’s “fraud detection project” as currently designed raises some competitive concerns that will be carefully assessed as part of the proceedings in order to verify the existence of solutions that are consistent with the principles of competition.

In particular, an initial analysis would reveal the risk that - this being a project developed by an association representing the interests of insurance companies - there are no sufficient impartiality guarantees for the fraud detection activity, which is certainly worthy, to be actually carried out to the benefit of every stakeholder. The Authority will also assess whether and to what extent the exchange of information inherent in the project and useful for its success could lead to an artificial increase in transparency in the markets concerned, thus facilitating collusion among competitors. Developing common algorithms and sharing a large amount of data could influence and standardise the choices made by companies at important phases of insurance activity.

Rome, 16 November 2020