In 2023 and 2024, floods hit Italy and Greece, among other countries, leaving many people dead and causing unprecedented financial damage.
Following the floods, both governments introduced laws making insurance for natural disasters compulsory for businesses while offering incentives to encourage individuals to purchase private insurance.
As state compensation is often slow or inadequate, homeowners and businesses in the affected regions of Thessaly and Emilia-Romagna are increasingly turning to private insurers — sometimes by choice, sometimes by law — to cover the rising cost of floods and other extreme weather events. However, as disasters become more frequent and premiums increase, protection itself is becoming a privilege.
In theory, as the shift onto private insurances promises a more predictable recovery system, with broader insurance coverage distributing risk and reducing dependence on slow-moving disaster aid.
In practice, however, the transition has exposed the limitations of relying on private markets in regions where extreme weather is becoming the norm, and where insurers, wary of mounting losses, are making private insurance increasingly difficult to obtain.
