Italian Life Margins Still Strong

NU Online News Service, March 17, 2004, 12:13 p.m. EST – The Italian life insurance market looks good.[@@]

Analysts in the London office of Moody’s Investor Services give that assessment in a new review of the Italian life market.

Banks now produce about 70% of life sales in Italy, and banks tend to generate business with lower profit margins than the insurers’ own distribution networks generate, the analysts write. But margins are still higher in Italy than they are elsewhere in Europe, and Italian life insurers face fewer worries about weak stock prices because they put less of their investment portfolios in stock, the analysts add.