ICMIF member Unipol Gruppo announced this week that it has signed a partnership agreement with Shell Italia to launch a strategic partnership in the mobility sector in Italy. The partnership will facilitate the development of a complete, innovative range of products and services for car drivers to help contribute to the ecological transition in the country. It is based on five main areas: electronic toll collection, fuel cards, electric mobility, telematics and company car fleet management.
With respect to electronic toll collection, where UnipolMove, devised by UnipolTech, made its successful debut with 300,000 devices distributed in the first five months, the partnership with Shell will play an important part in speeding up UnipolMove’s expansion in Italy, both through the Shell sales force and through the physical presence at Shell service stations.
Shell recently launched the Shell Card EV in Italy, a Shell Fleet Solutions fuel card which acts as a single device allowing customers to fill up on standard fuel at approximately 7,000 participating service stations in Italy and over 30,000 in Europe, and to charge electric cars at 28,000 public charging stations all over Italy (over 95% of the total) and another 370,000 all over Europe. The aim is to achieve steady growth in the fuel card market segment along with Unipol, promoting the Shell card with fleets that want the option of being able to reduce emissions and enjoy an integrated mobility range of products and services. The new range of products and services will be proposed to UnipolRental, UnipolMove and UnipolSai agency customers, in addition to the growing market of flexible benefits through the Tantosvago platform that was recently acquired by the Group and enabled entry into the corporate welfare market.
Both groups have made sustainability a strategic priority: therefore, the promotion of electric mobility is an important part of the agreement. Right from the start, this will be achieved with promotion of the Shell Card EV and will then be developed through installation of public and private charging stations in order to encourage the spread of electric mobility. The partnership will allow both further expansion of the Shell Recharge destination point network with businesses affiliated with the Unipol Group like the UNA hotel chain, and will also give access to charging stations to private and corporate customers of the Unipol Group.
Telematics and company fleet management are the other two areas where the Unipol Group and Shell will join forces to develop a joint range of products and services starting from knowledge of their customer needs using the data available from over four million Unipol black boxes and the broad range of Shell company fleet customers. This cooperation will mean that customised services and products can be devised to promptly and innovatively respond to customer needs, and more especially to once again encourage effectiveness, with direct benefits to the environment.
Giacomo Lovati (pictured on right) , Chief Beyond Insurance Officer of UnipolSai, said “In recent years, thanks to the mobility development plan, we have created an ecosystem of distinctive assets that have allowed us to develop a network of integrated mobility services designed to meet the needs of our customers and that can combine innovation and flexibility. Shell, with whom we share network and service synergies and the vision to support the ecologic transition of the country, is the ideal partner to further strengthen our position as an all-round partner for the entire lifecycle of mobility, in line with the targets of the Opening New Ways Strategic Plan”.
Giorgio Delpiano (pictured on left), Senior Vice President of Shell eMobility and Fleet Solutions said “Shell is in the middle of a journey aimed at developing more sustainable mobility focusing on both private parties and small and large enterprises. Having returned to Italy at the beginning of the year with our stations and fuel cards, we are now writing another important chapter to our story in Italy with a partner like Unipol who shares our ambition to create new solutions for car drivers and facilitate the energy transition.”
The cooperation reinforces the “Urban Mobility Council” think tank strategy promoted by Unipol with the scientific support of the Polytechnic of Milan with the objective of building a permanent platform for exchanges between institutional stakeholders, the world of academia, companies and the media in the new mobility frontiers. Data is the common thread linking the think tank activities as they are essential to analyse current and future trends, build strategies that can connect mobility to reality, with mobility undergoing a profound transition that will have significant technological, economic, industrial and cultural effects.
The mobility ecosystem of the Unipol Group
Unipol is a leader in the car business in Italy, with about 10 million car policies, and in the mobility ecosystem, with a range of products and services that can already guarantee the cover of customer needs along the entire life cycle of a vehicle through the services provided by UnipolService with its 4,000 body repair shops, UnipolGlass with its 200 window centres, UnipolAssistance with its 300 operators providing 24/7 assistance and UnipolTech, a leader in the field of telematics with over four million black boxes installed.
The Group also reinforced its position with its entry into the long-term rental market through acquisition of UnipolRental which manages over 65 thousand vehicles, an online platform Tenutabene.it for used car deals to help the circular economy and entry into the electronic toll collection market with UnipolMove with a device that can make motorway toll payments along with a range of other mobility-linked services: fines, car tax, parking, limited traffic zones and filling up.
Unipol is one of the biggest insurance groups in Europe and the leading company in Italy in the non-life insurance sector, (especially in the motor vehicle and health businesses), with total premiums of EUR 13.3 billion, of which EUR 7.9 billion is in non-life and EUR 5.4 billion in life (2021 figures). Unipol adopts an integrated offer strategy and covers the entire range of insurance and financial products, operating primarily through the subsidiary UnipolSai Assicurazioni. The Group is also active in direct motor vehicle insurance (Linear Assicurazioni), transport and aviation insurance (Siat), health insurance (UniSalute), supplementary pensions and it also covers the bancassurance channel (Arca Vita, Arca Assicurazioni and Incontra). It also manages significant diversified assets in the debt collection (UnipolReC), real estate, hotel (Gruppo UNA), medical-healthcare and agricultural (Tenute del Cerro) sectors.
As one of ICMIF’s founding members, Unipol Group will be the host of the ICMIF Centenary Conference (25-28 October 2022) in Rome, Italy: the city where ICMIF was founded 100 years ago.
