Italian Insurance Companies Showing Resiliency Amid Challenging Operating Environment; Improving Outlook

Morningstar DBRS has released a commentary discussing the Italian insurance sector's outlook for 2024.

Key highlights include:
-- According to the latest published data, life insurance premiums profitability is improving supported by growth in both Class I and Class III products.
-- Adverse weather events in Italy led to a deterioration in the non-life sector's overall underwriting profitability for the year.
-- Notwithstanding the prior drop in premiums in the life sector and the weaker underwriting result in the non-life sector, overall Italian insurance companies improved their bottom-line profitability in 2023, mostly benefitting from higher investment income, and the outlook for full year 2024 is improving.

"The Italian insurance sector has mostly overcome the challenges of the difficult operating environment it faced in 2023 and the current outlook is improving, supported by sustained premiums growth in the life sector, as evidenced by 2024 interim data, as well as the continuous growth in the non-life business' motor and non-motor segments", said Mario De Cicco, Vice President, Global Insurance & Pension Ratings.