Storms in Lombardy, €376 million of damage: the compulsory policy pays for the machines, cash pays for the months of shutdown
7 October 2026, 09:36
Between 20 and 28 August severe weather struck many parts of Lombardy: landslides and rivers bursting their banks in the provinces of Brescia, Sondrio and Bergamo, with Valle Camonica among the worst-hit spots, and on the 28th a supercell with hail and violent gusts over Cremona. On 6 October, in the regional council, the undersecretary Mauro Piazza gave the bill: 200 municipalities have reported damage of more than €376 million, and over 500 people were evacuated. From 6 to 9 October the national Civil Protection Department is carrying out inspections; then the Council of Ministers will decide on a state of emergency.
That figure also includes businesses. In Cremona the city council had put them in its estimate as early as September, alongside homes and churches.
The law requires the assets to be insured, not the business
Since 2025 Italian companies have been obliged to insure against natural catastrophes, and from the start of 2026 the obligation also covers small and micro enterprises, farms excepted. It is laid down in Article 1 of Law 213 of 2023, the budget law for 2024, from paragraph 101 onwards; the rules for the policy are in Ministerial Decree 18 of 2025. Land, buildings, plant, machinery and equipment are insured against five events: earthquakes, floods, landslides, inundations and rivers overflowing. A company that does not insure is not fined: the authorities take it into account when they award public grants and incentives, including those for disasters.
Two things are left out of the obligation. The first is hail and wind, which is exactly what the Cremona supercell was: they are covered by extensions that insurers sell separately. The second weighs more. The decree only requires cover for damage caused directly to the assets. The weeks of shutdown are not included.
A company that is not working keeps paying
The visible damage is the flooded department, and the policy reimburses it after the loss adjuster's assessment. The invisible damage comes later. For weeks, sometimes for months, nothing is produced and nothing is invoiced, and meanwhile out go the salaries, the loan instalments, the rent, the suppliers' invoices for goods already delivered. Outgoings stay those of a company at work; income becomes that of a closed factory.
Insurers call it business interruption loss. It is covered by a separate guarantee, which usually reimburses the lost margin and the expenses that carry on during the shutdown. It is not required by law, and it is not in the basic policy.
Anyone whose car is insured against hail knows the mechanism: after the storm the policy pays the body shop, and the three weeks on foot are borne by whoever used the car for work. For a company those weeks cost more, because in the meantime its buyers go elsewhere. The bodywork is insured; customers' patience is not.
Public aid comes later, and it is small
According to the account given by La Provincia di Cremona on 26 September, after hearing the regional Civil Protection, a possible state of emergency would bring a first allocation of between €3 and €5 million for all the affected areas together, earmarked for urgent public works. Grants to get businesses running again would come with a second resolution, at least a couple of months later, with an indicative ceiling of €20,000 per company. Set against the €376 million reported, that first allocation is worth, at best, just over one euro for every hundred of damage.
Nobody is to blame: after a disaster roads, bridges and evacuees come first, then businesses, with sums meant to help them restart, not to carry them through three months without turnover.
How long a company can last without receipts is measured beforehand
The calculation to do at home is a single one: for how many weeks the company can pay the outgoings that do not stop without collecting anything, using the cash it has and the part of its credit lines it does not use. That is its autonomy, and this is where the unused headroom on credit lines stops looking like waste. Leaving roughly a quarter of the granted facility unused is there precisely for cash emergencies, and a flood is the emergency par excellence.
Next to that number goes how long the shutdown would really last: the delivery time of a new machine, cleaning a department full of mud, testing before restarting. If the shutdown lasts longer than the autonomy, the gap has to be covered before the water arrives: with business interruption cover, with credit lines already granted, with a cash forecast that shows in advance where the money will run short.
The compulsory policy puts the plant back on its feet. What keeps the company alive, in the months when it stands still, is cash.
This article was prompted by a news item published in ANSA on 6 October 2026.