Low, very low. This is the level of insurance coverage in the agricultural sector. According to the president of ANIA, Maria Bianca Farina, “we are at 7-8% despite the fact that there is Italian and European public aid on coverage”. The launch, at the beginning of January, of the AgriCAT National Mutualistic Fund to cover damage to agricultural production caused by adverse events of a catastrophic nature should make it possible to make the leap in quality but “administrative simplification is also needed because until now the bureaucracy has represented a brake on the signing of policies», warns Tommaso Battista who took over the leadership of Copagri a few weeks ago.
According to the leader of the insurance companies, the public fund is «an important step for an initial recovery of positions and we have been working for months to offer complementary products to the Fund. It is an offer absolutely linked to needs». Battista also hopes that a “new phase” can be opened which will allow the insured agricultural area to be enlarged. In 2020, based on Copagri calculations based on the most recent Ismea data, the insured agricultural area was just over 1.2 million hectares, which correspond to just 10% of the total agricultural area. Battista again: «If one looks at the regional data relating to the insured crops, then, a picture emerges with few lights and many shadows: in fact, in the face of the great importance assumed by insurance companies in the North of the country, with Lombardy, Piedmont, Veneto, Friuli Venezia Giulia and Emilia-Romagna to take the lion’s share». Here the surfaces insured are between 35 and 45% while «in the rest of the Peninsula there are very low incidences, always less than 10%, with negative peaks between 0.5% and 2.5% in most of the Center -South”.
From his point of view, the «number of companies insured, the picture is certainly not positive: in the five-year period 2015-20 there was a significant loss of companies insured and in 2016, 2017 and 2020 the number of companies leaving the system was higher than that of revenue. So, it’s time to change course: “Today farms are preparing to experience a new phase that we hope will overcome these problems”.