Generali Offices Raided In Italy Insurance Probe

October 23, 2020 by Stephen Jewkes and Domenico Lusi

Italy’s tax police raided the offices of state railway Ferrovie dello Stato (FS) and Generali to gather documents in a probe related to the awarding of contracts to the Italian insurer, a document seen by Reuters on Friday showed.

A source close to the probe said Wednesday’s raid was part of an investigation Rome prosecutors are carrying out into whether Generali was awarded contracts in return for generous insurance policies granted to a series of top FS managers.

The document was a request by the prosecutors to hand over information related to their investigation.

FS and Generali had no immediate comment.

Among the documents seized was an audit by PwC, seen in part by Reuters, showing that of the more than 550 million euros ($652 million) in insurance premiums paid by FS in the period 2011-2019 Generali won more than 89%.

The audit also showed that from a sample of around 600 injury insurance claims with Generali in the period 1998-2017 by FS managers, 66 files were missing.

PwC declined to comment.

The source said there were people under investigation but declined to say how many or what the accusations against them were.

($1 = 0.8439 euros) (Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei and Gianluca Semeraro.)