The Bank of Italy's Financial Stability Report (Rsf), which overall paints a reassuring picture for the Italian economy and financial sector, still points to tensions in the life insurance sector, where the Eurovita crisis was recently and smoothly resolved.

For the Cinven-owned company, the problems stemmed precisely from surrenders of life insurance policies sold through bank branches during years of negative rates.

"Analyses conducted at the national and European level show that the adjustment to market rates of returns on insurance investment products could take longer ... [in Italy], due to the longer average maturities of bonds in the portfolio," Bankitalia warns.

Government bonds account for 45 percent of the investments of insurance companies operating in Italy, while another 21 percent are private bonds. Rising rates have led to latent capital losses on these securities, and at the end of October, Bank of Italy calculates, the net balance on investments was negative 48 billion.

"Capital losses were therefore reflected negatively on profitability, especially in life management. The Roe of that segment remained negative, albeit to a lesser extent than in the same period of 2022," the report says, highlighting the one-third drop in premiums from unit-linked policies, which was only partly offset by the recovery in premiums from traditional products (up 10 percent).

In the non-life sector, first-half Roe was up compared to the same period in 2022 due to an 8 percent increase marked by premium income, but overall the sector saw a Roe of just 2 percent in the first half of 2023.

(Valentina Za, editing Gianluca Semeraro)