The recent data of IVASS, the Institute for Supervision on insuranceshowed that on average the prizes paid by the Italians for the car policies And for those on life they are greater than the OECD average and much higher than those of other European countries of similar dimensions, such as France and Germany.
Another figure issued by the institute’s annual report is the very low penetration of insurance against damagea problem that emerged even after the floods of recent years in Emilia Romagna and Marche, which has led to a special legislation to stimulate the market.
RC Italian Auto Italian increasingly dear
The data of theVAT They refer to 2024 for Italy, while they arrive at 2023 for the rest of the OECD countries. According to the report published on June 19, 2025, the price difference between insurance, in particular on the AC car, between Italy and Europe is increasingly marked.
If for other types of policies the measure of the relationship between total prize and GDP is the diffusion index, for cars insurance it is a simple indicator Of price.
In fact, all cars in Europe are obliged to insurance on civil liability And the differences in the motorization rate of large EU countries are relatively contained. Even considering the average of absolute prizes, however, it is noted that our country is among those where you pay more.
If in France and Spain Average car insurance Costa 186 eurosin our country comes to 339 euros.
The total of vehicles insured in Italy is 33.5 million. The only state of the OECD that manages to overcome the levels reached by the policies in Italy is the United Kingdom, where the average cost is 381 euros.
The reasons for the differences in the costs
Ivass has also analyzed the composition of these costs, to understand where the difference between Italy and the other large European countries is. The Institute has noticed a relatively low discrepancy regarding management costs, which in Italy reach just over 26% of the prize against just under 20% of other European countries.
The expenses are therefore only partially a problem, but if put in relation to the prize itself, the difference does not explain by itself why in Italy the prices of the policies are so high. Most of the discrepancy, consequently, is linked to the cost of claims, which amounts to 4,926 euros per accident. A statistics also supported by the high number of claims reported in our country, 1.8 million per year.
Damage insurance
The IVASS data also measure a very low penetration, compared to the OECD average, of Insurance against all types of damage in our country. Nono being mandatory, in this case the percentage of total prizes on GDP size how common this type of insurance is.
If 5% of GDP is spent on average in other OECD countries to ensure against damage, in Italy this number was limited, in 2023, to 1.8%.
A problem that emerged significantly with the floods which hit, in 2023 and 2024, Emilia Romagna and the Marche.
Many companies, damaged by the flooding of the rivers, were not insured against this type of damage and had to ask for help or close. For this reason, starting from March 31, 2025, the policy against catastrophic events is mandatory for companies.
The effects of awareness, however, were immediate: in 2024 the collection of prizes on damages arrived 40.9 billion euros, up 7.5% on the previous year. Most of the revenues, however, still concerns the car sector (42.8%).
