Who Will Be Entitled to Adjust Catastrophe Losses?

The Register was created with entry requirements based on technical qualifications. In just over five months since its establishment, the admission rules have been amended twice, the second amendment coming little more than three months after conversion into law. This article examines what, in law, constitutes a catastrophe loss; which school and university qualifications are accepted; why the transitional experience-based route requires none; the absence from Article 19 of any express age limit or incompatibility; and the examination that will be compulsory under the ordinary regime but is not required during the transitional window.

For the first time in the Italian legal system, the adjustment of catastrophe losses is becoming a statutorily reserved activity. Outside the motor insurance sector — where loss-adjusting work and the relevant Register are governed by Articles 156–160 of the Code of Private Insurance, with registration requirements laid down by Article 158 — the investigation, assessment and quantification of property losses in non-motor property and casualty business have never been subject to a sector-specific reservation of this kind. Individual technical activities forming part of a loss assessment may already require specific professional authorisation, but insurance loss adjusting as such has always been an activity not subject to this sector-specific statutory reservation, governed by the insurer’s instructions, professional standing and contractual liability rather than by registration with a statutory professional body.

Article 19 of Decree-Law No. 25 of 27 February 2026 disrupted that balance in respect of losses arising out of catastrophe events, establishing the Register of Catastrophe Insurance Experts at CONSAP and backing the registration requirement with the criminal penalty for the unauthorised practice of a profession. The question that immediately followed was not theoretical: who, in practical terms, will be entitled to continue carrying out this work? It is a question of educational qualifications, and it was on that ground that the entire debate over the ensuing months played out.

The provision did not arise in isolation. It is the product of a chain that began with the introduction of compulsory catastrophe insurance for businesses, provided for by the 2024 Budget Law Article 1, paragraphs 101–111, Law No. 213/2023 and implemented by the interministerial regulation Ministerial Decree No. 18 of 30 January 2025, with deadlines subsequently deferred several times by later legislative measures and ultimately rescheduled according to business size by Decree-Law No. 39/2025. Compulsory insurance on this scale necessarily generates a commensurate demand for loss assessments: a very broad population of insured immovable property exposed to perils whose technical handling requires specialist expertise.

The second link is the framework law on post-catastrophe reconstruction, which already contained the criterion for the delegated legislation that was later turned into a directly applicable rule: to promote ‘the establishment, at Concessionaria Servizi Assicurativi Pubblici S.p.A. (CONSAP), of a register of experts for the financial assessment of losses caused by catastrophe events’ Article 26(1)(c), Law No. 40/2025 (unofficial translation). What had been a policy direction in the framework law was turned by Article 19 of Decree-Law No. 25/2026 into an immediately binding provision, bypassing the delegated legislative decree.

The third link — and the one of concern here — is the definition of the admission filter. It is on this point that the legislature changed course twice.

The material scope is defined by a list of events: floods, inundations and overflows of watercourses; earthquakes; landslides; ground collapses, sinkholes and collapse dolines; volcanic activity, including eruptions; tsunamis; storm-driven coastal inundation and wave action; tornadoes or violent whirlwinds; and extreme climatic events. The scope is confined to insured immovable property: movable property, stock, unattached plant and machinery, and business interruption (BI) losses are, on a literal reading, excluded, even though in many catastrophe claims they represent the most economically significant heads of loss.

This creates a mismatch worth highlighting, because it will arise within individual claims. The compulsory insurance that drives this market covers the tangible fixed assets specified in Article 2424(1), Assets section, item B-II, points 1), 2) and 3) of the Italian Civil Code — land and buildings, plant and machinery, and industrial and commercial equipment. The statutory reservation of loss-adjusting work, by contrast, ends at immovable property. In respect of the same insured event and under the same policy, adjustment of the building loss will be an activity reserved under criminal sanction to a registered expert, whereas adjustment of the machinery and equipment loss will fall outside the new reservation, without prejudice to any professional authorisation required for particular technical activities. Moreover, the boundary is fluid, because plant permanently incorporated into the land or building may fall within the civil-law definition of immovable property Article 812 of the Italian Civil Code: the same head of loss may be subject to a different regime depending on the legal classification of the property. This is a fault line that the implementing ministerial decree would be well advised to address.

The reservation is unequivocal. The activity ‘shall be carried out exclusively by persons entered in the Register’, and carrying it out without registration ‘shall be punishable pursuant to Article 348 of the Italian Criminal Code’ Article 19(4) (unofficial translation). This is accompanied by an annual management contribution payable to CONSAP paragraph 5, a regulatory power vested in CONSAP in relation to notification duties, removal and publicity paragraph 6, and a three-tier scale of sanctions — warning, reprimand and striking-off — the procedure for which must be governed by the future implementing ministerial decree by analogy with Article 331 of the Code of Private Insurance paragraphs 7–8 and 10(a).

It is precisely here that a recurrent misconception in the commentary published in recent months arises: the measure has widely been described as a ‘new professional register’. The institution is the Register, and the distinction is not merely terminological. A professional register maintained by a statutory professional body is administered by an ordine or collegio: a non-economic public body with compulsory membership, elected governing bodies representing its members, a code of ethics drawn up by the profession itself, disciplinary powers exercised by one of the body’s own organs, and prior professional qualification by means of a State examination Article 33(5) of the Italian Constitution. None of those features is present here. The Register is a list maintained by a joint-stock company acting as a public-service concessionaire; registrants pay a contribution but elect no governing body and have no representation; the rules are imposed entirely from outside the profession, through CONSAP’s regulation and the ministerial decree, with a disciplinary procedure still to be constructed ‘by analogy’ with Article 331 of the Code of Private Insurance. The model is the register of motor insurance loss adjusters and the register of insurance intermediaries, not the model of a statutory professional body. It is telling that the terminological uncertainty affected the legislature itself: the original Decree-Law twice used the Italian term registro before the Conversion Law standardised the terminology as ruolo.

That classification, however, does not alter the substance — if anything, it makes it more acute. A list requiring compulsory registration, underpinned by a criminally enforceable statutory reservation and a power to strike off, performs the same function of identifying a profession as a professional register maintained by a statutory professional body. In declaring the establishment of regional professional lists unconstitutional, the Italian Constitutional Court itself observed that a professional register performs ‘a function that substantially identifies’ the profession Judgment No. 127/2023. The Register is therefore not a professional register maintained by a statutory professional body, but in the essential respect it performs a comparable licensing function: it identifies those persons to whom a particular activity is reserved. This creates a regulated professional activity — without establishing a statutory professional body and without the safeguards that accompany one: no representation of registrants, no code of ethics drawn up by the profession, and no internal system of adjudication. Two practical consequences follow. First, the express reference to Article 348 of the Italian Criminal Code removes any doubt as to its application and makes the intention to protect the reservation through the criminal law unequivocal; even without that express reference, the combination of a statutory reservation and compulsory registration would have raised the question of whether the offence applied, since it presupposes a special State authorisation and does not necessarily require membership of a statutory professional body. Secondly, a question arises that will have to be resolved by the legislature or the courts: before which court may a refusal of registration or a decision to strike off, made by a private-law entity exercising powers that are substantively administrative, be challenged? Two factors make the jurisdiction of the Italian administrative courts plausible: CONSAP acts as a private body entrusted with the exercise of administrative functions and, as such, is bound by the principles governing administrative action Article 1(1-ter), Law No. 241/1990; and, in relation to the register of motor insurance loss adjusters — a regime that does not apply to the catastrophe Register — the Code of Private Insurance expressly assigns CONSAP decisions refusing registration or ordering removal to the administrative courts Article 350(2), Legislative Decree No. 209/2005. The matter must nevertheless be clarified by legislative intervention or case law: jurisdiction cannot be conferred by secondary legislation.

During conversion into law, a significant addition was made: for loss assessments concerning damage caused by landslides, hydrogeological instability, volcanic phenomena or slope instability, ground collapses, sinkholes or collapse dolines, the expert ‘shall obtain a geological report prepared by a geologist authorised to practise the profession and entered in the relevant professional register’ paragraph 4-bis (unofficial translation). This is one of two express links between the new Register and the system of statutory professional bodies: the other, subsequently introduced by Article 23 of Decree-Law No. 144/2026, is the transitional route for persons entered in professional registers maintained by statutory professional bodies, discussed in Part VII.

A further obligation, often overlooked, applies to every registrant irrespective of the route by which they entered: continuing education and professional development, ‘which shall in all cases be undertaken compulsorily and annually’, the arrangements for which are left to the ministerial decree paragraph 10(b).

Finally, two deadlines govern the entire timetable: the implementing ministerial decree, to be adopted within 90 days, must fix the date from which registration becomes a prerequisite for carrying on the activity, ‘which shall in any event be no later than 1 January 2027’ paragraph 10(c); the initial transitional regime ends on 1 April 2028.

The question is not merely one of nomenclature. Because the statutorily reserved activity applies only to catastrophe losses affecting insured immovable property, the definition of that concept determines, quite literally, which loss assessments may be undertaken only by a registrant and which will remain outside the new statutory reservation.

The term is indeed used in the decree, but with a degree of lexical inconsistency worth noting: the heading to Article 19 refers to ‘losses caused by catastrophe events’; paragraph 1 to ‘catastrophe losses’; the institution is named the ‘Register of Catastrophe Insurance Experts’; and CONSAP, in its own institutional section, renames it the ‘Register of Catastrophe Insurance Loss Adjusters’, replacing experts with loss adjusters. Three names for the same institution in three different places within the same legal system.

A definition based on an enumeration of causes, not on severity

The technically decisive point is another. Article 19 does not define a catastrophe loss by severity, financial threshold, geographical extent or administrative declaration. It defines it by enumerating its cause: catastrophe losses are losses ‘arising in respect of insured immovable property from’ floods, inundations and overflows of watercourses; earthquakes; landslides; ground collapses, sinkholes and collapse dolines; volcanic activity, including eruptions; tsunamis; storm-driven coastal inundation and wave action; tornadoes or violent whirlwinds; and extreme climatic events (unofficial translation).

A second point emerges by contrast. The provision refers to ‘insured immovable property’ without any reference to the businesses subject to the compulsory insurance requirement under Law No. 213/2023: on a literal reading, the reservation is not confined to that perimeter and applies to any insured immovable property affected by one of the listed events — including a private home, a condominium building, property belonging to a public authority or property owned by a third-sector entity. This is an extension of the personal scope that the debate, focused on compulsory catastrophe insurance for businesses, has so far overlooked.

The consequences are counter-intuitive and should be stated plainly. Minor water damage caused by a canal overflowing is, for the purposes of this provision, a catastrophe loss, and quantification of that loss will be a reserved activity. A very substantial loss caused by an event not included in the list is not, and its assessment will remain outside the new reservation. It is not the scale of the catastrophe that matters: it is the list.

Three scopes that do not coincide

The legal system now recognises at least three concepts that do not overlap. The first is the concept underpinning compulsory insurance, which is the basis of this market: the 2024 Budget Law provides that ‘the events to be insured […] shall mean earthquakes, floods, landslides, inundations and overflows of watercourses’ Article 1(101), Law No. 213/2023 (unofficial translation), and the implementing regulation supplies technical definitions, including INGV localisation for earthquakes and the 72-hour aggregation rule Article 3, Ministerial Decree No. 18/2025. Five exhaustive categories.

The second is the much broader concept under Article 19: it adds ground collapses, sinkholes and collapse dolines; volcanic activity; tsunamis; storm-driven coastal inundation and wave action; tornadoes and violent whirlwinds; and concludes with an open-ended residual clause — ‘extreme climatic events’ — without any criteria. The third, different again, is the civil-protection concept, which classifies events according to the level of administrative response required rather than their physical nature.

This produces a paradoxical outcome that the analysis cannot ignore: the scope of the professional reservation is broader than that of the compulsory insurance that generated it. It encompasses optional extensions under property policies — storm-driven coastal inundation and wave action, violent whirlwind — that have nothing to do with the compulsory cover under Law No. 213/2023.

Exceptionally severe hail

Hail does not appear in the list. It can therefore fall within the provision only if classified as an ‘extreme climatic event’. Three arguments weigh against that classification, at least in the case of an ordinary hailstorm.

Systematic argument. When Italian insurance law intends to identify hail, it does so expressly and places it separately from natural forces — a classification devised for supervisory purposes and therefore not determinative of the scope of Article 19, but indicative of the terminology available to the legislature. In its classification of insurance classes, the Code of Private Insurance places within Class 8, ‘Fire and natural forces’, damage caused by fire, explosion, storm, natural forces other than storm, nuclear energy and land subsidence, while assigning to Class 9, ‘Other damage to property’, damage ‘caused by hail or frost’ Article 2(3), Legislative Decree No. 209/2005 (unofficial translation). For the insurance legislature, hail is therefore a specified peril placed in a different class from natural forces. A legislature that, in 2026, listed even collapse dolines in detail, and had had that taxonomy available for 20 years, did not specify hail: in a list drawn with that degree of detail, the omission cannot be dismissed as an oversight.

Literal argument. The wording refers to climatic, not meteorological, events, whereas the appropriate term for individual atmospheric events is the latter: in listing categories of risk, the Civil Protection Code refers to ‘adverse meteorological phenomena’. The argument is not conclusive, however, since the legislature may well have used the adjective in a non-technical sense. The stronger consideration concerns the adjective ‘extreme’, which presupposes a threshold — of intensity, rarity or statistical return period — that neither the legislation nor any implementing measure has set: a requirement that no source quantifies cannot, by itself, provide the basis for extending the scope of a criminally enforceable reserved activity.

Strict construction and the ejusdem generis principle. This is the strongest argument, and it operates on two levels. At criminal law: carrying out the activity without registration constitutes the offence under Article 348 of the Criminal Code, the content of which is supplemented by the non-criminal provision defining the reserved activity; that provision accordingly participates in the criminal-law regime and is subject to the prohibition on applying it ‘beyond the cases and times contemplated therein’ Article 14 of the Preliminary Provisions to the Italian Civil Code, as well as to the principle of legal certainty Article 25(2) of the Italian Constitution. Expanding an open-ended residual clause by interpretation so as to encompass an event that the legislature did not specify would operate in malam partem. As a matter of general statutory interpretation, moreover, a residual clause at the end of a list must be construed consistently with the genus of the listed items: here, destructive geophysical, hydraulic and convective events, not ordinary atmospheric phenomena, however intense. It must be acknowledged that the criterion is not conclusive, since the list also encompasses events that are typically localised, such as ground collapses and collapse dolines: the common genus lies in their destructive and exceptional nature, not in their geographical extent.

There is therefore only one certain point: hail is not specified. A measured conclusion follows: an ordinary hailstorm appears difficult to bring within the residual clause, and the assessment of damage caused to immovable property by such a storm should remain outside the new statutory reservation; the classification of an exceptionally severe hail event remains uncertain, however, in the absence of statutory or regulatory thresholds. Pending clarification through implementing measures or case law, its inclusion within the reservation can neither be affirmed nor excluded in absolute terms.

An operational caveat should be added, because in loss-adjusting practice this is far from hypothetical: where hail is accompanied by a violent whirlwind — by no means unusual in convective systems — the component of damage attributable to wind falls within the specified events, whereas the hail component would do so only if classified as an extreme event: the same building and the same loss assessment could therefore involve two different regimes.

A possible objective evidential anchor

The indeterminacy of the residual clause is not beyond remedy, however, and it is useful to indicate a way forward rather than merely identify the problem. The legal system already contains an objective anchor that can be verified ex post: the declaration of a national state of emergency Article 24, Legislative Decree No. 1/2018, adopted in relation to events that, by reason of their intensity or extent, require extraordinary means and powers Article 7(1)(c). Such a declaration could constitute a particularly strong presumption — but not necessarily an exclusive one, since intense and localised events may fall outside it — that an event was extreme, supplemented by measurable technical thresholds based on monitoring-network data. This is subject to one limitation: implementing provisions may specify the statutory test, but may not narrow it beyond what the law permits. Until then, the boundary remains a matter of interpretation in an area where an interpretative error carries criminal-law consequences.

And today?

As matters stand, nothing has changed: the registration requirement is not yet effective, because the ministerial decree fixing its commencement date has not been adopted, although the 90-day deadline has expired; once fixed, that commencement date may in no event be later than 1 January 2027. Until then, the investigation, assessment and quantification of catastrophe losses to immovable property are not subject to the reservation under Article 19, whether the event is hail or flood, without prejudice to any professional authorisations required for particular technical activities. Thereafter, the boundary will lie where Table I places it, subject to the uncertainties that the table itself identifies for certain items — with the caveat that the principal criminal-law exposure falls upon the person who carries out the reserved activity without being registered, while further exposure for the person instructing them cannot be excluded where there is a knowing causal contribution and the other requirements for participation in an offence are satisfied.

At the heart of the system is letter e) of paragraph 1, which lists the educational qualifications. In the original version of the decree-law, the eligible pool was defined through three routes, only one of which concerned upper-secondary education.

Before considering qualifications: no express age limit and no prescribed incompatibilities

It is worth first clearing away what the provision does not prescribe, because what is absent is as significant as what is included. Paragraph 1 lays down no express age limit, whether minimum or maximum, and does not address the position of an applicant who is a minor. Nor is there any ground for removal from the Register based on age: once registration has been obtained, it has no fixed expiry date and continues for as long as the requirements remain satisfied, the annual levy is paid and the continuing professional development obligations are fulfilled. The relationship between these thresholds and those set by professional associations will be revisited in Part VII.

The second omission is more significant. Article 19 prescribes no incompatibilities. The comparison with the register of motor insurance loss adjusters is stark: there, registration is barred to anyone entered in the register of insurance and reinsurance intermediaries, to any full-time public-sector employee, and to anyone who carries on, whether directly or through controlling shareholdings, the business of repairing vehicles. These are independence safeguards, reflecting an awareness that the loss adjuster operates within a triangle of competing interests. Within the catastrophe framework, Article 19 makes no specific provision of this kind: there is no incompatibility with insurance intermediation, none with employment by an insurer and none with carrying on a construction or reinstatement business. The implementing decree may perhaps seek to fill the gap by regulation, but since these would be restrictions on the pursuit of an economic activity, introducing them without an express statutory basis would itself be open to challenge. This is the most striking paradox in the scheme: the provision prescribes the expert’s educational pathway in minute detail, yet says nothing at all about independence.

a) The upper-secondary technical diploma: only one specialism out of nine

The original text admitted the ‘upper-secondary school diploma awarded by technical institutes — technology sector, Construction, Environment and Territory (CAT) specialism’ (unofficial translation). As reorganised by Presidential Decree No. 88/2010, the technology sector of technical institutes comprises nine specialisms; the decree selected only one. Excluded — to take the examples that matter most in loss-adjusting practice — were Electronics and Electrical Engineering, which trains the technicians who investigate electrical phenomena and installations, and Mechanics, Mechatronics and Energy, which trains those called upon to assess damage to plant and machinery. The economics sector, academic upper-secondary schools and vocational institutes were excluded in their entirety.

For the sake of textual accuracy, it is worth noting that the official name of the specialism is ‘Constructions, Environment and Territory’: the legislature cites ‘Construction’ in the singular. This is a drafting inaccuracy without substantive consequences, but it illustrates the speed with which the provision was prepared. More significantly, the framework to which the provision implicitly refers is itself in transition: the reform of the organisational structure of technical institutes, established by Ministry of Education and Merit Decree No. 29 of 19 February 2026, applies to first-year classes from the 2026/2027 school year and redefines specialisms, options and timetables. Future diplomas will be awarded under the new system, while the names of the four specialisms referred to in Article 19 remain unchanged; however, the decree renames the sector from ‘technology’ to ‘technology and environment’, whereas the legislation continues to refer to the ‘technology sector’. Moreover, Article 19 contains no equivalence clause covering qualifications obtained under subsequent educational systems. These are terminological discrepancies that the implementing decree would do well to clarify.

b) University degrees: a narrow scope, but no exhaustive list of degree classes

The second route admits ‘a bachelor’s degree (L) or master’s degree (LM) in a technical or scientific field, with technical or structural expertise in the construction sector’. The test is twofold and must be read as drafted: it categorically excludes the entire field of economics, law and the humanities — there is no interpretative latitude for a degree in economics, law or political science — and, within the technical and scientific field, it requires a construction-related technical or structural focus.

The uncertainty therefore concerns not the breadth of the eligible pool, but its internal boundary. By failing to identify specific degree classes under the ministerial decrees adopted pursuant to the system laid down by Ministerial Decree No. 270/2004, the provision describes educational content rather than identifying qualifications unambiguously. For adjacent technical disciplines — environmental and land engineering, safety engineering, geological sciences, agricultural sciences and forestry — eligibility may depend on an assessment of the individual course syllabus. In the absence of a ministerial classification of the eligible degree classes, that assessment will fall to the administering body when examining an application: an unusual degree of technical discretion where the issue is the gateway to a statutorily reserved activity backed by criminal sanction.

A recurring doubt warrants clarification, and the wording must be read with close attention to its placement. The phrase ‘including corresponding qualifications obtained under previous educational systems’ immediately follows the reference to bachelor’s and master’s degrees: degrees awarded under the former university system are therefore unquestionably covered. As regards upper-secondary diplomas awarded under previous systems — above all, the geometra diploma predating the 2010 reform — coverage does not arise from the same clause and will need to be recognised through interpretation or implementation, on the basis of equivalence with the specialism that succeeded it. This affects a very large cohort and is a matter that the implementing decree would do well to clarify expressly.

c) The ITS Academy diploma: and the sixth-level paradox

The third route admits the ‘diploma of specialisation in applied technologies, awarded upon completion of the ITS Academy courses referred to in Article 5(1)(a) of Law No. 99 of 15 July 2022’, by reference to the national occupational profiles identified by Ministry of Education and Merit Decree No. 203/2023 in Area No. 5 — Home Systems and the Built Environment, as well as foreign qualifications recognised as equivalent.

The cross-reference is precise and, for that very reason, produces a counter-intuitive result. Article 5(1) of Law No. 99/2022 distinguishes EQF Level 5 courses — letter a), leading to the diploma of specialisation in applied technologies — from EQF Level 6 courses — letter b), leading to the higher diploma of specialisation in applied technologies, which may be offered for occupational profiles requiring a volume of traineeship hours incompatible with a two-year course. By referring only to letter a), the provision admits the lower-level qualification and, on a literal reading, excludes the higher-level qualification within the same pathway. For the time being, the point is prospective, since the introduction of Level 6 courses in Area 5 is itself only a possibility; nevertheless, it is a coordination defect requiring legislative intervention. A secondary source cannot add a qualification not contemplated by the legislation, unless admission can be founded on equivalence already recognised by another legal source.

d) Supervised traineeship and qualifying examination

Under the ordinary regime, the qualification is accompanied by two further conditions: a two-year supervised traineeship under an expert already entered in the Register, required of anyone who does not hold at least a three-year bachelor’s degree under point (f), and successful completion of a qualifying examination in technical, legal and economic subjects, regulated by CONSAP under point (g). Neither has yet been given practical effect, and both are excluded from the transitional arrangements; they are considered separately in Part VIII.

Conversion Law No. 59 of 27 April 2026 retained the overall structure but broadened the upper-secondary educational base by adding three specialisms within the technology sector of technical institutes: Agriculture, Agri-food and Agro-industry; Mechanics, Mechatronics and Energy; and Chemistry, Materials and Biotechnology.

The selection is consistent with the types of insured event concerned. The agricultural specialism includes the ‘Environmental and Land Management’ option, which covers land instability and hydrogeological management; the mechanical specialism covers plant, energy and equipment; and the chemistry specialism covers materials and, under the ‘Environmental Biotechnology’ option, post-event contamination. Electrical engineering remains excluded, which continues to be surprising.

The Conversion Law also corrected three technical shortcomings in the text. It replaced the reference to a ‘university diploma of at least three years’ duration’ with the reference, correct under the current system, to ‘at least a three-year bachelor’s degree’; it standardised the terminology by removing the fluctuation between registro and ruolo in the original text; and it completed the good-repute and integrity requirement under point (c), extending it to a personal declaration of bankruptcy and to being personally subject to insolvency proceedings, rather than applying only to senior office-holders in insolvent companies.

Table III is illustrative and non-exhaustive, and does not reproduce any statutory list: as noted above, the provision contains none. It presents a reasonable mapping of the phrase ‘technical or scientific field, with technical or structural expertise in the construction sector’ onto the current degree classes and is intended primarily to make visible the breadth of the evaluative discretion that the provision confers on the administering body.

For those who have practised the profession for decades, the real issue was not the ordinary regime — which will apply to new entrants once the system is fully operational — but the transitional provisions governing initial implementation. In the wording enacted by the Decree-Law and confirmed unchanged on conversion, Article 19(9) imposed two cumulative conditions: satisfaction of the good-repute and integrity requirements and possession of the educational qualification specified in point (e), together with evidence of at least three years’ experience in the assessment of catastrophe losses.

In other words, experience did not replace the qualification: it was required in addition to it. The transitional regime dispensed with the traineeship and the examination, but not with the diploma. The practical effect is readily described: a professional holding a degree in economics or law and with twenty-five years’ property loss-adjusting experience — by no means an unusual profile in the actual structure of the non-motor claims market — remained excluded from the Register under both the ordinary and the transitional routes. A technical qualification obtained on completion of secondary education carried more weight than a quarter-century of documented professional practice.

Article 23 of Decree-Law No. 144 of 7 August 2026 — a measure concerning the operation of public authorities and local government bodies, as well as civil protection — takes a direct approach: it replaces paragraph 9 of Article 19 in its entirety. The preamble states the quantitative rationale for the amendment: during the initial implementation phase, to ensure ‘the availability of an adequate number of experts’, having regard to ‘the experience and professional qualifications held’.

The first gateway: registration with a statutory professional body

Point (a) admits professionals entered in a professional register maintained by a statutory professional body ‘whose professions are vested with technical competence in the investigation and assessment of losses to immovable property’, from whom only satisfaction of the good-repute and integrity requirements is required. Not the educational qualification under point (e), not a traineeship, not an examination and — importantly — no prior experience in the sector: registration with the relevant statutory professional body displaces any further assessment.

This solution substantially reflects the request made by the Network of Technical Professions during parliamentary scrutiny, on the basis that the relevant activities already fell, as a matter of professional regulation, within the remit of its members. The preamble to the Decree-Law, however, explains the amendment by reference to the need to ensure an adequate number of experts. The provision does not list the relevant statutory professional bodies; instead, it identifies them by reference to the conferral of ‘technical competence’ in the investigation and assessment of losses to immovable property. No set of professional regulations uses that precise expression. Valuation appears, within differing scopes, in the professional regulations governing the geometri profession under Royal Decree No. 274/1929, engineers and architects under Royal Decree No. 2537/1925, as well as the regulations governing the agricultural professions and industrial technicians. The practical identification of the professionals falling within the provision is therefore left, once again, to the implementation stage.

The second gateway: experience as an alternative to the qualification

Point b) is the provision likely to have the greatest impact on the loss-adjusting market. Two amendments, each comprising only a few words, reverse its effect.

First: the alternatives. The conjunction ‘and’ in the previous wording has been replaced by the words ‘in the alternative … or’. The educational qualification and professional experience are no longer cumulative: either will suffice. Anyone able to demonstrate adequate professional competence and at least three years’ evidenced experience may enter the Register irrespective of the educational qualification held. This is precisely the route that the previous wording denied.

Second: deletion of the adjective. The previous wording required experience in the assessment of ‘catastrophe’ losses to insured immovable property. The new wording removes that adjective: the relevant experience is experience ‘in the investigation and assessment of losses to insured immovable property pursuant to this Article’.

The wording supports both interpretations, neither of which can yet be regarded as settled. The deliberate deletion of the adjective from a provision which otherwise follows the previous wording closely is a strong argument for treating broader experience of insured property losses — fire, escape of water and weather perils — as relevant, rather than confining it to major catastrophe events, which by definition arise intermittently and are handled by a limited number of firms. However, the concluding words ‘pursuant to this Article’ remain, and a narrower construction may link them to the specific events listed in paragraph 1, thereby limiting the breadth of the amendment. This is the provision’s principal question of statutory construction. The CONSAP regulation expressly contemplated by point b), governing the manner in which the requirement is to be assessed and evidenced, may adopt a position for administrative purposes, but cannot bind the interpretation of the legislation.

What level of education is therefore required? None under the experience route

The consequence must be stated expressly because it is the most radical aspect of the entire reform. If the educational qualification and experience are alternatives, a person relying on the latter may enter the Register without any educational qualification requirement. Not a technical diploma, nor any other diploma: none at all. Point (b) requires good repute and integrity and, as an alternative to the qualification, adequate professional competence supported by at least three years’ experience. Under this route, no educational qualification is mentioned in any form: selection depends entirely on evidence of adequate professional competence and at least three years’ experience.

The practical consequence is particularly important for anyone holding a qualification not covered by point e) — a vocational certificate or diploma, a non-technical course of study, or a foreign qualification not recognised as equivalent. For these candidates, the transitional window is not merely the more convenient route: it is the only practicable one, because the ordinary route will in all cases require one of the listed qualifications, which cannot be obtained without returning to education.

The comparison demonstrates the extent of the anomaly. Entry in the register of motor insurance loss adjusters, administered by the same body, invariably requires ‘possession of an educational qualification no lower than an upper-secondary school diploma’: however extensive, experience does not dispense with that requirement. For entry in the Register, whose members will assess earthquake and flood losses affecting immovable-property portfolios, no educational qualification is required for twenty months — although good repute and integrity, adequate professional competence and three years’ experience remain mandatory. Moreover, because — as already noted — registration obtained in this manner is permanent and is not subject to subsequent regularisation, that practitioner will remain registered after 1 April 2028, when a newly qualified CAT diploma holder will be required to undertake a two-year supervised traineeship and pass an examination.

This is not, it should be stressed, an argument against widening access. Documented professional experience is a serious selection criterion and, for the non-motor loss-adjusting market, it was the only way to avoid disregarding twenty-five years of accumulated expertise. The point is that the legislature has created an inverted scale of rigour: a route with no educational filter whatsoever sits alongside one of the most demanding ordinary admission routes, and the entire burden of selection has therefore been transferred to an instrument that has yet to be issued — the CONSAP regulation that must establish what constitutes ‘adequate professional competence’ and how it is to be evidenced. If that regulation is exacting, the system will be workable; if it is merely formalistic, the gateway will remain wide open.

Two misconceptions to dispel: age and professional-association membership

Article 19 contains no express age requirement, whether minimum or maximum. Paragraph 1 contains four personal requirements, all relating to good repute: enjoyment of civil rights under point (a); no final conviction for any of the offences listed in point (b); not having been declared bankrupt or made subject to judicial liquidation under point (c); and not being subject to any disqualification, prohibition or suspension under the Anti-Mafia Code under point (d). Paragraph 9 refers to those four points, and only those four. No age threshold appears anywhere in the provision.

This clarification is necessary because the sector’s professional associations do impose age thresholds under their own rules. The ANPRE regulations require Ordinary Members to be at least twenty-five years of age and also to hold a diploma or degree, be in active practice, have no convictions for intentional criminal offences and pass an admission examination. AIPAI requires Full Members to be at least twenty-eight years of age, to satisfy the requirements of UNI 11628:2016 through first-level certification or an internal examination, and to have a period of professional practice graduated according to the qualification held — eight years for a diploma, five for a bachelor’s degree and three for a master’s degree. These are association membership requirements: they have no bearing whatsoever on entry in the Register.

The second misconception is the mirror image of the first and must be addressed just as clearly: membership of a professional association does not provide access under point (a). That point refers to ‘professionals entered on the rolls of statutory professional bodies’. ANPRE and AIPAI are not statutory professional bodies: they are professional associations. Indeed, the ANPRE articles of association expressly refer to Law No. 4/2013 on professions not organised into statutory professional bodies. A member who is not also entered on a statutory professional roll must therefore rely on point (b), through either the educational qualification or documented three years’ experience.

The comparison reveals an asymmetry that deserves attention: voluntary self-regulation, which has no coercive power, applies a more exacting filter than the statutory reservation whose breach constitutes a criminal offence does during the transitional window. It is particularly striking that AIPAI adjusts the period of experience according to the qualification held, whereas the legislature treats three years’ experience as a flat threshold, identical for a person with a master’s degree and one with no qualification at all. A calibration model already existed in the market and was more sophisticated than the one adopted by legislation.

The asymmetry between the two gateways, and what Article 23 leaves unchanged

There are two lettered gateways but three operational routes, and they are not equivalent in terms of the evidential burden. For a person registered with a statutory professional body, the check is documentary and immediate; the same applies to a person who, under point (b), produces the educational qualification specified in point (e). Only the third route — professional competence and three years’ experience — entails a substantive assessment, the criteria for which are to be defined by a body outside the system of statutory professional bodies and have not yet been issued. Although each route confers the same formal access, the burden of obtaining it differs.

More importantly, Article 23 rewrites only the provisions governing initial implementation. It does not amend Article 19(1), the statutory reservation under Article 19(4) or the deadline in Article 19(10). After 1 April 2028, admission will once again be governed entirely by the ordinary requirements: a technical qualification, a two-year supervised traineeship where applicable, and a qualifying examination. The window opened by the August Decree-Law is wide but brief — less than twenty months — and gives no permanent recognition to professional experience as an admission qualification. Anyone practising in the sector without a technical qualification has one opportunity only, and that opportunity has an expiry date.

The regulation that will determine everything: the limits of its remit

Point (b) concludes with an express and limited referral: ‘By its own regulation, CONSAP shall determine the procedures for assessing adequate professional competence and evidenced experience’ (unofficial translation). This is not the general regulation governing the operation of the Register; it is a delegated power within the transitional provisions, concerned exclusively with evidencing the experience-based requirement. The regulation has not yet been adopted.

Because the delegated power concerns the manner of assessment, rather than admission requirements, the regulation cannot add conditions that the legislation does not impose: no educational qualification, no entry on a statutory professional roll, no minimum age, and no ordinary qualifying examination under point g) during the transitional phase — without prejudice to the possibility of investigative checks on professional competence. There are also two systemic reasons for this conclusion. First, in Article 23 the legislature has just chosen to make qualification and experience alternatives, so reintroducing the former by regulation would contradict the provision being implemented. Secondly, the scope of access to an activity reserved by statute, where unauthorised practice attracts criminal liability, cannot be narrowed by secondary legislation.

What the regulation may legitimately do, however, will carry almost as much weight as a substantive requirement. Matters clearly within the delegated remit include specifying the documents that will be accepted, the admissibility of confirmations issued by insurers, the weight to be given to work carried out as a team member within an organised adjusting practice, and the criteria by which adequate professional competence is to be assessed. The latter could also be tested through an interview or review of sample reports, which would be investigative measures distinct from the qualifying examination under point g). More debatable — and lying on the boundary between evidential arrangements and a new substantive requirement — would be provisions requiring the three-year period to be continuous or recent, or prescribing a minimum number of reports: these would make more onerous a requirement that the legislation expresses solely by reference to duration. For anyone considering this route, the real risk is therefore not the reintroduction of an educational qualification; it is that the evidential standard for experience may be calibrated by reference to a professional profile different from their own.

Until that regulation is adopted, the experience route is available in law but closed in practice, because no procedure exists by which the requirement can be evidenced. The documentary routes based on a statutory professional roll or an educational qualification are, for separate reasons, awaiting the practical opening of applications. The statutory deadline of 1 April 2028 will not, however, move: every month of delay shortens the available window, with no corresponding extension.

This is the issue that has so far received insufficient attention and is probably the most important in operational terms. Under the ordinary regime, the system established by Article 19 rests on three requirements — two general and one conditional: the educational qualification under point (e); a two-year supervised traineeship with an expert already entered in the Register, required for anyone who does not hold at least a bachelor’s degree under point (f); and successful completion of a qualifying examination, ‘consisting of an examination in technical, legal and economic subjects relevant to the practice of the profession, governed by CONSAP by means of its own regulation’ under point (g) (unofficial translation). Under the ordinary regime, everyone must take the examination, including graduates. The special regime for professionals qualified in other Member States under Article 19(2) and (3) remains unaffected.

The organising body is identified indirectly but unambiguously. The annual administrative levy payable by registered experts is calculated by reference, among other matters, to the ‘costs connected with organising and administering the qualifying examination referred to in paragraph 1(g)’ under paragraph 5. The examination will therefore be convened, organised and administered by CONSAP and funded by those entered in the Register.

There is no examination under the transitional regime — nor will one be imposed afterwards

The original paragraph 9 referred to points a) to e), including the educational qualification; the current wording refers only to points a) to d) — the good-repute requirements — and adds, as alternatives, membership of a statutory professional body, the educational qualification under point e) or three years’ experience. Neither version, however, refers to point (f) or point (g). Accordingly, neither the two-year supervised traineeship nor the qualifying examination is required during the initial implementation phase.

This point should be emphasised for what it is, because it is often described as a moratorium: it is not. No provision states that registration obtained under the transitional arrangements is temporary, subject to a condition subsequent, or dependent on later regularisation by examination. Anyone admitted by 1 April 2028 will be entered in the Register with full effect and will remain there afterwards. The transitional window is not a deferral: it is a final and alternative route to admission, which closes on a fixed date. Final as regards the qualification conferring entitlement to practise, that is: registration remains subject, as it does for every registered expert, to continuing satisfaction of the requirements, payment of the annual levy, mandatory annual continuing professional development and disciplinary powers extending to removal from the Register.

When will the examination be held, and how often? The legislation is silent

The text offers no guidance on this point. It sets no deadline for convening the first examination, prescribes no minimum frequency — annual or otherwise — and specifies neither the number of sittings nor the location or format of the examination. Everything is left to the CONSAP regulation and, as regards the general operation of the Register, the decree of the Minister of Economy and Finance under paragraph 10. This gives rise to an asymmetrical consequence worth making explicit: once applications open and until the first ordinary examination has been held, the transitional route will be the only one available in practice to candidates under the domestic regime seeking entry in the Register — although, as matters stand, no route is yet operational because the relevant procedures do not exist. Anyone who falls outside both gateways in paragraph 9 will in practice be excluded from the activity — which will become a criminally enforced statutory reservation once the registration requirement takes effect — until the next available examination, for which no timetable currently exists.

A reality check: the qualifying examination for motor insurance loss adjusters

The closest institutional precedent — not least because it is administered by the same body — is the Register of Motor Insurance Loss Adjusters. Responsibility for it passed from ISVAP to CONSAP on 1 January 2013 pursuant to Decree-Law No. 95/2012, and it is now governed by CONSAP Regulation No. 3 of 4 October 2024. It should be made clear that those rules do not apply to the Register of Catastrophe Insurance Experts: Article 19 makes no reference to them and provides for a separate regulation, which has yet to be adopted. The precedent serves only one purpose here: to provide an indication of the administrative timescales involved when the same body is responsible for conducting a qualifying examination:

• the 2025 examination session was announced by CONSAP Measure No. 22 of 24 January 2025;
• applications could be submitted online only, between 1 and 31 March 2025;
• the examination was held in a single nationwide sitting in Rome on 3 December 2025;
• it comprised two papers, with a pass mark of 70/100 in each;
• the results were made available to candidates on 11 March 2026.

Just under fourteen months elapsed between the announcement of the examination and publication of the results and, for the 2025 session, there was only one examination venue nationwide. It should also be noted that CONSAP’s publicly available archive of previous sessions ends in 2019: in practice, examinations have not been held at regular intervals. None of this is binding on the Register of Catastrophe Insurance Experts, whose examination will be governed by its own regulation. Anyone expecting to register ‘at a later stage, by sitting the examination’, however, should assess that expectation against timescales of this order.

What CONSAP has published to date

The documentary position, summarised at the outset, speaks for itself: two institutional webpages, no implementing measure and no notice inviting applications. The silence nevertheless has a structure worth examining. Still outstanding are the Ministerial Decree governing the operation of the Register under paragraph 10 and the regulatory provisions covering the matters entrusted to CONSAP — notifications, removal from the Register and publication under paragraph 6; verification of the experience requirement under paragraph 9; and the qualifying examination under paragraph 1(g) — which may be dealt with in one or more measures. They do not carry equal weight: the Ministerial Decree governs the practical opening of the registration process, whereas the rules for verifying experience will determine who can, in practice, qualify through the transitional route. The latter is the more urgent because the window it governs is self-depleting: every month of delay reduces the time available to apply, without providing any compensating extension, since the deadline of 1 April 2028 is fixed by statute rather than by the date on which the procedure opens.

One final point should be borne in mind when assessing the reliability of the timetable: as at 25 August 2026, the ‘Legislation’ section of the CONSAP website had yet to incorporate Decree-Law No. 144/2026, which had been in force since 8 August. This is not merely a formal observation. The provision rewritten by that Decree-Law is precisely the one in respect of which CONSAP will have to exercise its regulatory powers.

The mismatch in timing

The timing presents the most serious practical difficulty. The registration requirement must take effect no later than 1 January 2027, and breach of that requirement constitutes the criminal offence of unauthorised practice of a profession under Article 348 of the Italian Criminal Code. As at the date of writing, however, the implementing ministerial decree has not been published in the Gazzetta Ufficiale (Italian Official Gazette), CONSAP has not adopted its regulation and CONSAP itself — on the institutional webpage dedicated to the Register, updated on 25 August 2026 — states that it has ‘no further information at present’, confirming only that the Register ‘must become operational from January 2027’. A requirement backed by criminal sanctions, compliance with which depends upon an administrative infrastructure that does not yet exist, raises an obvious question as to whether the required conduct can reasonably be expected.

The criminally enforceable statutory reservation and the Italian norma penale in bianco: who, in practice, defines the offence

The reference to Article 348 of the Italian Criminal Code warrants closer examination, because the Italian Supreme Court of Cassation has defined the provision in terms that are doubly significant here. In resolving conflicting authorities on its scope, the Joint Criminal Divisions held that the offence is committed where an unqualified person performs even a single act, whether occasionally or without remuneration, if that act is reserved exclusively to the profession. The offence also extends to acts that are merely characteristic of a profession, rather than exclusively reserved to it, where they are performed in a manner that — by reason of continuity, remuneration and organisation — creates the appearance of authorised professional practice: Italian Supreme Court of Cassation, Joint Criminal Divisions, 23 March 2012, No. 11545. Applied to the present context, once the registration requirement takes effect, a single loss-adjusting report concerning flood damage, prepared and signed by an unregistered professional — an isolated instruction, perhaps undertaken as a courtesy for a longstanding client — may in itself constitute the offence, because it is an act statutorily reserved on an exclusive basis. Neither habitual practice nor remuneration will be required.

The second consequence is more fundamental. It is settled law that Article 348 of the Italian Criminal Code is a criminal provision requiring supplementation by non-criminal legislation — the Italian doctrinal category of norma penale in bianco. Its operative prohibition is supplemented by provisions identifying the professions for which special State authorisation is required, together with the subjective and objective conditions governing their practice. Primary legislation must therefore define the nature, prerequisites and limits of the reserved activity with sufficient precision. Here, by contrast, three decisive aspects of the scope of criminal liability depend on wording that the legislation leaves open and that will be given content elsewhere: the phrase ‘extreme climatic events’, which defines the subject matter of the reservation; ‘technical or structural competence in the construction sector’, which defines the relevant qualifications; and ‘adequate professional competence’, which governs access under the transitional arrangements and is expressly left to a CONSAP regulation. Only the third of these boundaries is expressly delegated to a CONSAP regulation. The other two remain matters for legislation and interpretation, but without any further definition. The result is that significant parts of the boundary between lawful and criminal conduct are left, in one case, to a regulation adopted by a joint-stock company and, in the other two, to imprecise statutory wording. This creates an evident tension with the requirement that the matter be prescribed by primary legislation and with the principle of legal certainty and sufficient precision (lex certa) under Article 25(2) of the Italian Constitution — a tension that the practical application of the provision by the lower courts is unlikely to overlook.

The relationship with the system of statutory professional bodies

The constitutional objection raised in the debate must be framed precisely. The case law of the Constitutional Court reserving to the State ‘the identification of professional categories, together with the relevant professional profiles and qualifying titles’ — a principle established as early as Judgment No. 353 of 2003 and subsequently reaffirmed, among others, in Judgments No. 98 of 2013 and No. 127 of 2023 — operates as a constraint on regional legislation. Here, the professional category has been created by the State, so no issue of legislative competence arises. The appropriate grounds for scrutiny are instead the reasonableness and proportionality of the new statutory reservation in light of professional authorisations already granted by the State itself, as well as the proportionality test required under EU law before any new regulation of professions is introduced, pursuant to Directive (EU) 2018/958, implemented in Italy by Legislative Decree No. 142/2020.

In this latter respect, the weakness of the measure is procedural before it is substantive. The implementing Legislative Decree requires an authority introducing or amending a statutory reservation of professional activity to carry out a prior, reasoned assessment of its necessity and suitability, and to establish that the objective cannot be achieved by less restrictive means. At present, the publicly available preparatory documents examined do not disclose a proportionality assessment of the new reservation that meets the requirements of that Legislative Decree. The review would, however, need to be completed across the entire regulatory and parliamentary file, and the absence of such an assessment cannot be inferred solely from the use of a Decree-Law. It must also be acknowledged that the provision is not indifferent to EU law: Article 19(2) and (3) expressly govern the position of professionals qualified in other Member States, permitting them to carry on the activity under the freedom to provide services on a temporary and occasional basis, or on a permanent basis following recognition of their qualification under Legislative Decree No. 206/2007 and subsequent registration upon application. A disproportionate reservation applying to a service activity nevertheless remains open to scrutiny under EU law. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has censured national authorisation regimes applied to activities outside regulated professions — one example, albeit in a very different field, being the Italian rules on out-of-court debt recovery: CJEU, 18 July 2007, Case C-134/05.

Who, exactly, must be registered

The legislation reserves to registered persons ‘the activity of assessing and placing a financial value on catastrophe losses’, but does not state whether registration is required of everyone who participates in that activity or only of the person who accepts the instructions and signs the report. The distinction is far from theoretical and affects at least four categories: a court-appointed expert (consulente tecnico d’ufficio, CTU), who acts under a judicial rather than contractual appointment; the third expert or expert determiner appointed under a contractual expert-determination procedure under the policy; technical staff employed by insurers; and members of loss-adjusting practices who carry out inspections and investigations under the responsibility of the instructed loss adjuster. The wording does not address any of these positions. Since the issue affects the scope of a criminal offence, clarification during the parliamentary conversion process would be preferable to clarification by regulation.

The conversion process is still under way

Decree-Law No. 144/2026 has been in force since 8 August 2026 but must be converted into law by 6 October 2026. The new paragraph 9 is therefore currently in force, but is not yet final: Parliament may amend it, as has already happened to the preceding text.