TITLE:
The Insurance Market of Natural Hazards for Residential Properties in Italy
AUTHORS:
Fabrizio Terenzio Gizzi, Maria Rosaria Potenza, Cinzia Zotta
KEYWORDS:
Natural Hazards, Damages; Risk Perception, Risk Management, European Insurance Schemes
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Earthquake Research,
Vol.5 No.1,
February
26,
2016
ABSTRACT: Insurance is an effective complementary countermeasure for unexpected losses brought about by
natural hazards. Coverage can be a useful tool considering in particular that public funds available
to compensate for damages are limited and the consequences of catastrophes are becoming more
severe over the time. Bearing this in mind, the authors performed a study aiming to clear up the
main aspects and limits of the insurance market of natural hazards for residential properties in
Italy. The opening sections of the paper give an overview of both the historical extreme events in
Europe and Italy, and the reasons for the low insurance penetration rate in Italy. After that, the
paper goes to the core of the research casting light upon the insurance market in Italy and examining
the features and possible drawbacks of the available insurance covers. In this paper, the
geophysical (seismic and volcanic) and hydrological (landslide and flood) hazards are analysed,
and the residential stock is taken as a reference. After deepening in the local insurance market,
the research focuses on the possible suggestions to stakeholders of how to increase the insurance
penetration rate by taking advantage of the international experiences.