Demand for Transparency: The “Eurovita” Case and the South Tyrolean Consumer Center

The “Eurovita” case: The South Tyrolean consumer center is demanding more transparency on behalf of the insured.

Eurovita is an insurance company that primarily sells life insurance policies.

She has over 353,000 customers throughout Italy who have invested their money in around 413,000 contracts. The total capital managed by her is around 15.4 billion euros (source: Sole 24 Ore).

Inquiries about the “Eurovita case” are piling up in the South Tyrolean consumer advice center these days. Concerned consumers want to know how their savings are doing.

Eurovita has been in the headlines for two months because it got into financial difficulties. You absolutely need fresh money in order to meet the legal requirements for the stress test of an insurance company.

But what happened?

Eurovita was put under provisional administration on February 6th of this year.

The reason for this was that the company failed the so-called “stress test”.

This stipulates that an insurance company must be able to cope financially if 40% of the savers withdraw their money at the same time. By not passing the test, Eurovita would have had to carry out a capital increase. Until March 31, 2023, and under provisional administration, the search for a solution or investors was in vain.

These should provide the insurance company with fresh money.

Parallel to the provisional administration, the insurance supervisory authority Ivass has decreed that partial and total surrenders of life insurance are not permitted between February 6th, 2023 and March 31st, 2023, the VZS informs.

With the end of the provisional administration, the insurance was now placed under “special administration”. For this purpose, the insurance supervisory authority Ivans has imposed another payout freeze until June 30, 2023.

How does it go from here?

Consumers can only wait until a solution is on the table.

It is currently assumed that a solution will be found: the insurance and banking sectors are in the process of working out solutions, also because otherwise confidence in the sectors would have been irreparably damaged.

Partial and total payouts of life insurance are not possible until June 30, 2023.

Excluded from the “payment freeze” are all pension provision products, as well as damage events such as the death of the policyholder or contract maturities in life insurance.

In the last few weeks, consumers who hardly knew anything about the current situation have repeatedly reported to the VZS. “In fact, consumers have not received any personal communication from Eurovita to date. Therefore, we call for a more transparent handling of the situation. After all, in their role as contractual partners of Eurovita, consumers have the right to ongoing, up-to-date and transparent information,” says Stefanie Unterweger, the insurance consultant at VZS.

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