Banks Sell Nearly Three in Four Life Policies in Portugal, and Some Loan Cover Paid Commissions Worth Over Half the Premium, the Insurance Supervisor Finds

When a bank sells you life insurance alongside a mortgage or a personal loan, part of what you pay goes to the bank as commission. Portugal's insurance supervisor now says that for some credit protection policies, that commission has been worth more than half of the premium, and it has started asking insurers and sellers to justify products it thinks give customers little value for money.

The finding is in the first Relatório sobre a Atividade da Mediação de Seguros (Report on Insurance Intermediation) published on Monday by the Autoridade de Supervisão de Seguros e Fundos de Pensões (ASF, the insurance and pension funds supervisor). The report, which covers 2025, is the first time the ASF has gathered in one document its figures and supervisory work on the agents, brokers and banks that sell almost all of the insurance bought in Portugal. This account is taken from the report itself.

Loan cover under review

The ASF followed up in 2025 on a 2022 warning from the European insurance authority, EIOPA, about how credit protection insurance is sold. That is the cover sold alongside a loan to repay it if something happens to the borrower. Earlier ASF surveys had found "some cases in which commissions represented more than 50% of gross written premiums", the report says, and raised questions about whether sellers' pay was proportionate to "the real benefit of the product for consumers".

The supervisor has adopted a four-stage plan: map the products and risks, examine specific products and distributors in detail, intervene where needed, and then monitor the result. It is now at the second stage. The ASF says it has sent "several communications" asking for explanations about products identified as having little value for money, and in 2025 it also reviewed the distribution contracts behind them. It does not name any insurer, bank or product, and it does not say how many policies are involved. It says the subject carries "significant conduct risk" and will stay under "special attention".

Banks sell most life insurance

The report shows how much of this business runs through bank branches. In 2025 banks accounted for 72.5% of life insurance sales, up 4.5 percentage points on 2024. Measured by gross premiums, 75% of the life business placed through intermediaries went through banks, against 17% of non-life business.

Non-life insurance, such as car, home and health cover, is still mainly sold by agents and brokers outside the banks, who handled 75.4% of it. Banks are strongest there in fire and property damage insurance (26.5% of sales), which is usually bought with a mortgage, and in health insurance (24.2%). Direct sales by insurers, at branches, by phone or online, remain small: 3.2% of life business and 7.4% of non-life.

Taken together, intermediaries were involved in more than 92% of the premiums written in Portugal in 2025. They earned 1,475 million euros in commissions and other pay, 9.7% more than the 1,345 million of 2024: 390 million from life insurance and 1,085 million from non-life. Four years earlier, in 2021, the total was about 1,074 million.

Fewer, older agents

At the end of 2025 there were 10,024 registered insurance intermediaries, down from 11,932 in 2021. Almost all were agents, who sell on behalf of one or more insurers: 9,936, of which 95 were banks. There were only 66 brokers, who act independently of insurers, plus 6 ancillary intermediaries (businesses that sell insurance as an add-on to their main product) and 16 reinsurance intermediaries. Between 2021 and 2025 there were 2,720 new registrations and 8,535 cancellations.

The average individual agent was 54.1 years old, and the age has crept up every year since 2021. Men averaged 56.2 and women 50.3. The ASF calls generational renewal a real challenge for the sector.

What the supervisor checked

The ASF carried out 349 supervisory actions on intermediaries in 2025: 298 at a distance and 51 on site, 29 of them as a "mystery shopper". The on-site visits looked most often at shop requirements, including whether the complaints book was available, and at how policies were sold, including the information customers were given.

It wrote to 3,016 intermediaries about irregularities that put their registration conditions at risk. That led to 1,959 problems being fixed and 1,057 registrations being cancelled. In all, 299 registrations were suspended and 1,369 cancelled during the year, some at the intermediary's own request.

On enforcement, the ASF opened 28 new files over suspected offences in insurance distribution, dismissed 11 at the outset and started 21 formal misdemeanour proceedings. The cases included selling insurance without being registered, failing to keep the compulsory professional liability cover, breaking the advertising rules, and failing to answer a complaint made in the electronic complaints book within 15 working days. It also issued 94 recommendations and 276 specific instructions to intermediaries.

The report also looks at "wholesale" intermediaries that sell through networks of sub-agents. In a survey of 33 of them, four said 90% or more of their premiums came through sub-agents. The ASF warns that long chains of sellers can mean extra charges and duplicated commissions for the customer, and says it will follow some of these firms closely.

A watch on foreign sellers

Among the trends it flags, the ASF says more and more foreign firms, including some from outside the European Union, are interested in operating in Portugal because the country attracts certain activities, and it gives digital nomads as an example. It says that requires attention to possible unauthorised activity. Anyone selling insurance in Portugal must be registered with the ASF or, for a firm based elsewhere in the EU, be entitled to operate here through a branch or cross-border services, and the ASF keeps a public register so customers can check.

What you can ask for

Under the EU insurance distribution rules the report summarises, whoever sells you a policy, bank or agent, must first identify your needs, give you clear information before you sign, and tell you the nature of the pay they receive for the contract. For non-life products you should also get a standard product information document.

If something goes wrong, you complain first to the insurer or intermediary, and then, if needed, to the ASF. Our new guide Complaining about an Insurer or Insurance Agent in Portugal sets out the deadlines and each step. For the cover a bank will ask for with a mortgage, see Getting Home Insurance in Portugal.

In August we reported the ASF's second-quarter figures, when a winter of storms pushed home and fire insurance payouts above the premiums collected.