Novis, the new life insurance case
Italian customers would be a few thousand, but there are no precise numbers. The case of the Slovak insurance company Novis, albeit with numbers decidedly marginalagitates the insurance industry already grappling with the rescue of Eurovita. On 5 June, the Slovak supervisory authority revoked Novis the license to carry out the insurance business and the stipulation of new contracts is forbidden. The company will have to limit itself to the activities “necessary to enforce its rights and settle its liabilities”. Nbs, the Slovak authority, will present the request to the court put into liquidation of the company.
Distribution in Italy
Novis sold policies in life business in Italy under the freedom to provide services but does not have an Italian corporate structure. He mainly sold policies in Italy unit linked. On the Italian-language site of Novis, a broker from Bergamo appears as “master distributor”, Eqa Life. IVASS released the information from the Slovakian authority on 6 June. For its part, Novis has disputed the decision of the supervisory authority and announced that will appeal. The company also said it was “amazed at the amount of errorscontained in the provision.
The long clash with the authorities
However, the attention of the European authorities on the company comes from afar. The NBS had already issued activity limitation orders in 2020 and 2022when it froze the company’s business between January and March for failing to comply the minimum limit of Solvency II.
Previously it had also moved l’Ivasswhen in 2018 he reported a series of critical issues on a Novis product also sold in Italy and called Wealth Insuring. In 2021 (first semester) Novis was at the top of the ranking of customer complaintscon beyond 45 complaints for every 10,000 contracts. To give a measure of magnitude, the second operator (Zurich) had received 5.8 complaints for every 10,000 contracts.