IVASS, the Italian insurance regulator, issued Regulation 8 on March 3 2015, which describes the simplified procedures and compliance obligations that apply to relationships between enterprises, intermediaries and clients.

The document aims to foster technological innovation by reducing paperwork. Many of the regulation's provisions are optional and aim to incentivise (without forcing) the market to develop commercial policies that take account of the various simplification tools provided therein and stimulate the interest of clients in these tools.

Article 4 introduces the requirement for intermediaries registered with the RUI (an electronic database of insurance and reinsurance intermediaries) and insurers to register for certified electronic mail (known as 'PEC'). However, this obligation already applied to companies upon registering with the Companies Register (Decree-Law 185/2008 converted into Law 2/2009) and sole traders (Article 5 of Decree-Law 179/2012).

Article 5 includes the request to use an electronic, advanced, qualified, digital and biometric signature to subscribe policies and, more generally, that documentation relating to insurance contracts is not mandatory and lacks any moral suasion. Articles 6 to 11 follow the various phases of the supply chain of digital trade, from the transmission of pre-contract documents and the documentation exchanged during the relationship, to the payment of the premium and filing of the related documents. Among other things, clients must be provided (free of charge) with:

  • electronic tools – including online tools – to enable them to pay their insurance premiums; and
  • the possibility of receiving or transmitting pre-contract and contract documentation by email.

Finally, companies and intermediaries are prohibited from asking the insured for documents already produced in relation to pre-existing contracts that are still valid.

However, the regulation sets out the communication methods between the parties that can apply – wholly or partly – to the trading of goods using traditional techniques and therefore excludes those cases where companies sell through specific remote selling systems (eg, the use of call centres or websites).

Article 13 harmonises ISVAP (the previous insurance regulator) Regulation 34/2010, which deals with remote promotion and the placement of insurance contracts that, as a result, will continue to apply to those forms of distribution.

For further information on this topic please contact David Maria Marino or Mauro Carretta at DLA Piper Italy by telephone (+39 02 80 61 81) or email ([email protected] or [email protected]). The DLA Piper website can be accessed at www.dlapiper.com.

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