Following the public consultation launched on 18 March 2014, IVASS published the Regulation No. 8 of 3 March 2015 concerning measures to simplify the administration of contractual relationships between insurance undertakings, intermediaries and clients. The Regulation implements Article 22, paragraph 15-bis of Law Decree No. 179 of 18 October 2012, as converted into law which required IVASS to enact measures aimed at reducing the paper format requirements and promoting the use of digital documentation. Below are the main relevant provisions set out by the new Regulation.

Italian and EU insurance undertakings and intermediaries are required to foster the use of advanced electronic signature, qualified electronic signature and digital signature for the execution of the insurance agreements.

Furthermore, with an aim at promoting the use of traceable means of payment, insurance undertakings and intermediaries must allow clients to pay insurance premiums by means of electronic payment instruments.

In addition, before the execution of the agreement or the signing of the proposal, insurance undertakings and intermediaries may obtain the client’s consent – also through voice recordings or email – to the electronic transmission of the relevant documentation during both the pre-contractual and contractual phase of the relationship with the client.

Insurance undertakings and intermediaries must adopt a documentation management system aimed at avoiding requests to clients of documentation which is not necessary or which has been already obtained in relation to previous relationships with the same client.

Italian insurance undertakings and intermediaries must obtain a certified e-mail account (“Posta Elettronica Certificata” or “PEC”) and indicate the PEC address in any communication addressed to the public and on their website. However, it is worth noting that this obligation already apply, upon registering with the Companies’ Register, to companies (Law Decree 185/08, converted into Law no. 2 of 28 January 2009) and sole traders (art. 5 of Law Decree no. 179 of 18 October 2012).

Insurance undertakings and intermediaries will have 6 months from the entry into force of the Regulation (which shall occur 30 days from publication in the Italian Official Gazette) to comply with the new provisions regarding the PEC address and the establishment of the above-mentioned documentation management systems.

The Regulations apply to the promotion, distribution and management by companies and intermediaries of life and non-life insurance contracts. Instead the distribution of insurance products pursuant to the IVASS Regulation No. 34 of 19 March 2010 would remain excluded from the scope of the Regulation.