IVASS and Mystery Shopping
Online Sale of Non-Life Insurance Products
IVASS has announced, via a press release, its participation in the second joint mystery shopping campaign in the European insurance sector, organised by EIOPA (European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority).
The first campaign (the first ever to be coordinated at EU level), launched in 2024, focused on the sale of insurance investment products; this one will focus on the online sale of non-life insurance products.
Mystery shopping is an activity aimed at purchasing (or carrying out acts leading up to a purchase) insurance products and services, carried out –incognito– by specially trained individuals who behave as potential consumers, through in-person visits to distributors or online interactions via digital channels (so-called ‘mystery surfing’), in order to capture and assess the real consumer experience.
Mystery shopping therefore represents a tool to support supervisory activities, designed to facilitate the verification of the correct application (by insurance intermediaries) of regulatory standards and to enable the collection of useful information on the real sales process for insurance products, to also identify risks and opportunities.
The results of the second campaign, which will involve Italy (along with other Member States), will be published in the first half of 2027.
