Unfair competition within the insurance market

In recent time, the insurance market is exposed to a practice implemented by insurance agents of promoting new products to customers of their former Insurance Company. Such conduct exposes the agent to the risk of receiving compensation claims from the insurance company, which suffers a reduction in its customer portfolio. In this regard, the court rulings seem to be inclined to consider procured customers to the company as its exclusive assets (Trib. Milano sent. no. 3199/2017). Therefore, whether the agent adopts acts intended to attract former customers aiming to advantage Insurer competitors, he/she may be held to compensate the insurance company for the damages caused. This conclusion, indeed, appears to be also legitimate with regard to the provision of “indennità di clientele “(literally “customers allowance”), a specific form of compensation provided to the agent for increasing the insurance company’s client portfolio. Moreover, if the above conduct was carried out using customer and contract data, considering such data part of the company assets as well, it could also result in a violation of industrial property law.

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