New method for calculating mandatory civil liability insurance premium

The methodology of calculating the basic insurance premium and the rectification coefficient for the mandatory civil liability insurance for damage caused by motor vehicles, which was approved by the Government on March 12, could be implemented in at most one–two months, the vice president of the National Commission on Financial Markets (CNPF) Aurelia Doina informed at a news conference. She said that the objective is to set a common method for calculating the insurance premium that would reveal the real risks and would satisfy the interests and possibilities of the parties in an even way. The new methodology for both the insurances of this internal type and external type in the Green Card System. Angela Popil, deputy director of the CNFP’s Insurance Department, said that the key element that will be used to fix the basic insurance premium is the probable size of the damages that the insurer will have to pay to the injured parties. These damages correlated with the number of policies will constitute the risk policy that will be estimated on the basis of the information collected in the specialized motor transport registers and the state register of road accidents, of the information covering the previous period provided by the insurers and on the prognostication of the size of damages in the future. “Given that the law No.414 in the field adopted in 2006 includes the Green Card motor civil liability insurance in the compulsory motor civil liability insurance, the fixing of the basic insurance premiums and of the rectification coefficients according to a common method will help avoid the arbitrary fixing of insurance premiums for this type of insurance,” Popil said. Asked by the journalists if the policy prices will grow up, Angela Popil said that it is too early to say. “So far, the Government fixed the size of the civil liability insurance premium at 400 lei. The cost of the policy is individualized and varies from case to case,” the cited source said. The new methodology will be applied by CNPF during five years. Afterwards, the insurance premiums of this type will be fixed with the consent of the parties that signed the insurance contract. It is expected that the insurance market during this period will be liberalized. Asked to pronounce on the new methodology, Eugen Datsko, executive director of the Union of Transporters and Road Workers, said that some of the opinions of the transporters were taken into account when it was worked out and it will do justice to the insured to a certain extent. Vladimir Stirbu, head of the CNFP’s Insurance Department, said that 33 companies work on the insurance market at present. Twenty-eight of them provide compulsory civil liability insurance policies for damage caused by motor vehicles. The insurance premiums collected last year totaled 155 million lei, while the damages paid 58 million lei. Only 50% of the car owners purchased mandatory civil liability insurance policies. The amount of the insurance premiums accumulated in the Green card System in 2007 was 130 million lei compared with 102 million in 2006. Asked how the new methodology will influence the profits of insurance companies, Vladimir Stirbu has said a level of profitability of 10% for the civil insurances was established for damages made by cars domestically and 7% in the Green Card System. The insurances policies will be bought by transporters only at special booths not in the street, in cars or from unidentified people.