CGPA EUROPE ITALY – 7th EDITION OF THE OBSERVATORY: AN OVERVIEW OF THE INSURANCE INTERMEDIATION MARKET
On the occasion of the presentation in Italy of the European Observatory on Insurance Intermediaries, CGPA Europe held a videoconference attended by 250 participants. The videoconference particularly focused on the following topics:
• Brokerage and communication during the pandemic: the role of social media – Patrizia Contaldo – Università “L. Bocconi”, and Head of Observatory on Insurance Market of the Study Center “Baffi-Carefin”
• Digital transformation and customer relations: changes in the Professional Indemnity of insurance intermediaries – Michele Tavazzi.
These presentations were followed by a panel discussion in collaboration with Insurance connect, on the theme: “Intermediaries and business: how to foster the transformation of sales activities”, with:
- Vincenzo Cirasola, President of ANAPA (Associazione Nazionale Agenti Professioni di Assicurazione)
- Claudio Demozzi, President of SNA (Sindacato Nazionale Agenti)
- Luca Franzi De Luca, President of AIBA (Associazione Italiana Broker di Assicurazione e Riassicurazione)
- Jean Francois Mossino, Agents Commission, BIPAR
- Laura Puppato, Responsible AGIT institutional relations, Gruppo Agenti Groupama
- Luigi Viganotti, President ACB.
This panel discussion was moderated by Maria Rosa Alaggio, Insurance Connect e Insurance Trade Director.
The videoconference mainly focused on the environment in which European insurance intermediaries work nowadays. Indeed, the coronavirus emergency has accelerated a trend that already existed among agents and brokers, namely a change in the nature of the relationship between them and their clients. According to Lorenzo Sapigni, Managing Director of CGPA Europe Italy, “Next year we will be able to see the effects of the pandemic on agents and brokers. […]. We will have to face what has been defined as a new normal and the threat must be transformed into an opportunity to gain a competitive advantage”. In particular, it will be important “to exploit all available channels to create a new customer relationship model: if the pandemic can leave us with anything good, it will be a hybrid relationship system”. The Professor Patrizia Contaldo, a member of the Baffi-Carefin Study Centre at Bocconi University, also highlighted the benefits of digitisation, and explained the results of research carried out on the social activities of intermediaries during the lockdown: “Social networks have proven to be a useful tool for keeping in touch with clients despite social distancing measures”, she said.
The conference also highlighted the challenges faced by insurance intermediaries. According to Massimo Michaud, CEO of Kinetica, intermediaries currently face two challenges: regulation and digitisation. “Although there have been judgments in favour of agents and brokers over the past year, compliance with laws and regulations is a complex challenge. He said: “It has an ever-increasing weight in the insurance market and absorbs enormous resources”. During the conference, he also focused on the issue of digitisation, which has accelerated considerably with the pandemic, although many areas still need to be improved, such as the traceability of advice provided by intermediaries.
