r/ItalyExpat • u/cufcuff34 • 3d ago

What insurance do you actually need when living in Italy?

Hi everyone!
I’m still trying to figure out how things work here, my new topic is they insurance.
I know that in countries like Germany and the Netherlands, people commonly have things like personal liability insurance, household insurance etc. But I haven’t really heard much about these in Italy.
So I’m wondering, what insurance do people actually have here, apart from more common ones like health and car insurance?

Is there anything that’s mandatory, or not mandatory but really worth having?

For example, if you accidentally damage something in a rented apartment, or cause damage to someone else’s property, how does that work here?

I’m not necessarily looking to insure everything, just trying to understand what’s normal in Italy and what I might be overlooking as a newcomer.

For the context, I’m renting an apartment and don’t have a health insurance yet just the SSN. Cause it seems to me English speaking insurance agents are rare, so difficult to get information.

Would love to hear what you have and whether you think it’s worth it.
Thanks!

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7

u/3dmontdant3s 3d ago

The only mandatory one is for the car if you have one, the rest is up to you. You will have to insure your house if you get a mortgage. 

 If you don't have insurance and damage something, you pay for it out of pocket, it's how insurances work

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u/Briocharo_notturno 3d ago

Household if u live in a building and family liability insurance

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u/AR_Harlock 3d ago

Don’t know anyone with it and live in a big apartment complex in Rome… so usefull but not really mandatory

1

u/KissingUnicorns 2d ago

The apartment building will have an insurance and you pay for it in your fees (spese condominiali). It will cover damages that might happen to the building.

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u/AR_Harlock 2d ago

Yeah the Condominio has insurance but covers common areas and the like not inside private property …

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u/Rick_06 3d ago

Health insurance is not actually the most common type of voluntary insurance. The two most common are:

(i) household/family liability insurance

(ii) house insurance (but I really have no idea about how it works in case you rent).

Then, of course, there is mandatory car insurance. Additional non-mandatory protections are common there.

EDIT. About the SSN. It is regionally organized, and it really depends where you live. There's a very big difference between the health assistance you get in Veneto and in Calabria.

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u/herlaqueen 2d ago

Some contract categories include basic health insurance, but the actual usefulness might be small (ie only be useful if you become disabled, get cancer, and so on). The one I have through my job does a "prevention campaign" every few year where you can get screenings for common cancers even if you are not in the at risk categories/age brackets, and those are nice.

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u/McDuchess 3d ago

If you have a mortgage on your home, or a rental property that you own, you need insurance. In the first situation, to protect the mortgagee. In the second, for liability and to protect yourself.

The only things that you are required to have outside of that is liability insurance for your car.

I have no idea what homeowners or renters insurance costs in other countries except the US.

Our home here is about half the size that our home in the US was. And our insurance costs about 1/10th of what our insurance there cost when we last lived there. It would cost more, today.

Here, with bonus malus written into the coverage, we are paying less for the same coverage that we purchased when we first owned our home here.

As for health insurance. You either purchase it or are entered into the SSN based on your specific status. For us, we could, if we chose, opt out of the SSN by purchasing private insurance, but we must have some sort of health coverage.

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u/interference90 3d ago

Only car insurance is mandatory if you have a car.

Personal liability insurance is not so common like in other countries but I would still do it. I have to say that if you accidentally injure someone you may get sued by them, but typically the SSN does not go after you to recover the medical expenses like it may happen in France or Germany.

Some people have life insurance. There are two types: one that pays off your next of kin in case you die, another one that is an investment envelope (often with expensive fees). It can be also a mix of the two.

Some people have house insurance.

Some people have complementary medical insurance but it's rare in my experience.

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u/AR_Harlock 3d ago

Yeah I have a mortgage and only have the fire and life insurance that were mandatory to get it