Pesaro, August 19, 2026 – They believed they had invested their savings in regular insurance products. In reality, they were “phantom” policies. They had forms, receipts, statements with accrued interest, watermarked paper, and agency stamps. But those policies did not exist in the company’s systems and the money intended for investments had been collected by the agent. Now the Pesaro Court has condemned Generali, which took over from Cattolica Assicurazioni, to compensate three clients of the Montecchio agency, assisted by lawyer Anna Bartoli. To the amount recognized by the judge will be added revaluation and interest accrued over the years.
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The ruling
The ruling reconstructs a case discovered after the agent’s death, which occurred in November 2022. The three were already clients of the agency for car and motorcycle insurance and had turned to him to invest their savings. Everything, on the surface, was regular: forms with the company logo, blue watermarked paper, agency stamp, receipts, and summary statements. However, in the company’s systems, those investments did not appear.
The Financial Police investigations
The investigations by the Guardia di Finanza, delegated by the Pesaro Prosecutor’s Office, reconstructed the money trail. In the agency’s archives, client folders with documents matching those delivered to them were found. The investigations also revealed other similar operations attributed to the same agent. Generali argued that it should not be held responsible for the agent’s conduct.
What the court decided
The Court decided differently: according to the judge, the wrongdoing was made possible or at least facilitated precisely by the role the man held in the insurance network. Essentially, clients could reasonably trust because they were in a company agency and received documents that appeared authentic. An employee also recognized the stamp and watermarked paper used.
Internal controls
The ruling also focuses on internal controls. In 2018, 2020 and 2022 anomalies had emerged in the management of collections and money flows. In 2020, a shortfall of about 19,000 euros was also detected. Furthermore, the bank statements checked by inspectors were not requested directly from the bank but were delivered by the agent himself: a system the judge considers inadequate to truly verify the transactions. Additionally, a significant portion of cashier’s checks, although made out to the insurance company and non-transferable, was cashed into the agent’s personal account.
Compensation
For the Court, the bank should have detected the anomaly or at least investigated it further. For this reason, the bank was ordered to bear, towards Generali, the amounts related to those checks, totaling 411,475 euros, plus accessories.
The precedent
And there is a precedent. On July 27, the same judge had ordered compensation of 10,800 euros, plus interest and revaluation, to another client of the same agent and agency: that time the policy existed, but some premiums paid had never been accounted for. The anomalies emerged when the client contacted the company after the agent’s death in November 2022, discovering that several payments had been left out of the policy despite having the receipts issued over the years. The client had requested nearly 20,000 euros, arguing that the premiums, if regularly invested, would have produced a larger capital at maturity. However, the Court recognized as certain damage only the amounts actually paid and never entered into the policy: 10,800 euros.
