Everyone pays: only a third of carriers have issued an OSGOP policy

Only 30% of Russian taxi drivers have issued an OSGOP (compulsory civil liability insurance of the carrier) policy, such data was announced at an industry conference by the National Union of Insurers. The document has become mandatory for taxi drivers since September 1, 2024, it was introduced for passenger health and property insurance. Market participants complain about the inconvenient procedure for obtaining insurance in the regions and the delay in deadlines — up to 30 days instead of the prescribed five, which is why drivers simply ignore the requirement for a compulsory insurance policy. About what else prevents drivers from applying for a policy, see the Izvestia article.

Why carriers are abandoning OSGOP

Among the 1 million taxi drivers registered in the registry, only 300 thousand have issued an OSGOP, which is less than 30% of the total number of carriers. This was stated by Mikhail Porvatov, a representative of the National Union of Insurers, at an industry conference dedicated to the interim results of the requirement introduced in the fall of 2024.

The OSGOP provides for compensation for damage caused to the passenger's health and property during transportation. Registration of the policy from the fall of 2024 is mandatory for legal entities, sole proprietors and individuals who carry out transportation in a taxi. Fines are provided for the absence of a policy: for officials — up to 50 thousand rubles, for legal entities — up to 1 million rubles.

— OSGOP is aimed at maximizing the property protection of victims, — said Mikhail Porvatov. — We are concerned about its insufficient penetration. In order to remedy the situation, we have sent to the State Duma a proposal on the control by aggregators of the availability of OSGOP policies for carriers.

But for self-employed drivers, the registration of such a policy creates economic difficulties, said Ivan Litvinov, head of the Association of the Self-Employed of Russia.

— The requirements for private drivers are not economically justified. OSGOP is convenient for legal entities — they have both doctors and mechanics to carry out the necessary examinations. CTP should be enough for self—employed drivers," he believes.

Irina Zaripova, Chairman of the Public Council for Taxi Development, agrees with him.

"The introduction of the annual OSGOP became another point of financial burden for taxi companies, especially large ones, which needed to find serious sums at a time to insure the entire fleet," she explained to Izvestia.

Self-employed carriers who operate taxis on an irregular basis are not interested in obtaining such a policy, echoes Anton Smerkis, head of the legal department of Maxim taxi ordering service. She also said that the registration of OSGOP policies has significantly increased the burden on administrative authorities.

— Now in the regions, instead of the prescribed five days, carriers often register for up to 30 days, — he said.

Mikhail Mikhailov, President of the Association for the Promotion of the Taxi Industry, called the situation with the OSGOP policy in relation to drivers unfair.

— Taxi drivers have to insure the lives of passengers and other road users. Such compensatory payments are not provided for the drivers themselves," he said. — OSGOP insures the life and health of the passenger, but the driver also participates in this trip. An injustice arises. I am sure that if the OSGOP includes life insurance for drivers, the share of carriers that have issued it will grow from 30% to 50%.

However, Mikhail Porvatov said that the cost of OSGOP is a minor burden on carriers. Its cost is about 3.5 thousand rubles per year.

But the Maxim taxi called this price too high.

— Our voluntary insurance program for compensation of harm to life and health costs 120 rubles per year for each driver (10 rubles per month), — the press service of the service told Izvestia. — At the same time, we protect the life and health of not only passengers, but also drivers and third parties. Even at the average tariff, the OSGOP is 30 times more expensive than is actually necessary to cover insurance risks.

Representative of the Competence Center of ANO "International Eurasian Taxi Forum" (MEFT) Stanislav Shvagerus noted that the OSGOP is not adapted to digital systems — its design has remained in analog mode, and the document itself has to be printed out and submitted to regional authorities to confirm the design.

— Not all subjects have their own information resources that allow us to send notifications electronically. OSGOP should be a digital product," he said. — The regional authorities are sitting for a day in order to manually run the system even according to the annual OSGOP. They can't get hundreds of thousands of taxi drivers to issue an OSGOP every day.

Why is OSGOP needed?

According to the OSGOP, the payment limit for passengers is up to 2 million rubles. Prior to this, the passenger's life and health were insured by CTP policies, the limits of which were limited to 500 thousand rubles.

Petr Shkumatov, head of the working group of the Popular Front for the Protection of Motorists' Rights, recalled a well-known case when passenger Elena Grashenkova was involved in an accident during a taxi ride. The accident occurred in 2016, and she was able to claim compensation only in 2023.

— I know only one such company, Maxim, among aggregators, which pays compensation to victims. But they don't do it according to the OSGOP, they pay everything themselves," he said. — Those who oppose the OSGOP should put themselves in the place of Elena, who lies all broken down, and they tell her that she will remain disabled for life because the operations she needs are not required by compulsory medical insurance.

He recalled that the injured passenger had to sell her apartment in order to quickly undergo surgery and undergo the necessary paid treatment.

— And how many such people were left without a penny at all? — Peter Shkumatov asked a rhetorical question.

He also recalled that after this incident, Yandex began to insure the liability of taxi drivers for 2 million rubles.

"We all want to have at least some money if something happens," the expert said. — At the same time, what I am saying does not negate the difficulties with the registration of the policy. People have to print out the policy and take it in paper form in order to issue it. Why can't we establish a digital channel? But passenger insurance itself is a humane idea.

Alexey Koitov, Chairman of the Consumer Union of the Russian Federation, also stated the need to encourage taxi drivers to perform their duties in good faith.

— I insist that it is necessary to force market participants to purchase policies, — he said. — I urge my colleagues not to fight those who impose additional responsibilities, but to look for ways to optimize them. Let's refine the system so that it is good for both entrepreneurs, consumers, and the state.

What the industry offers

OSGOP was originally intended to protect the rights of passengers of other types of public transport rather than taxis, said Anton Shaparin, Chairman of the National Union of Motorists. Therefore, the amount of penalties was chosen accordingly.

"One million rubles is a serious blow for any taxi company, and for an individual entrepreneur or a self—employed person, it's debt bondage for years," he told Izvestia.

At the same time, according to him, the statistics provided by insurers are the number of completed contracts, not the number of insured cars.

"In general, the sale of OSGOP insurance is the most profitable business in Russia," he said. — For example, Ingosstrakh collected more than 500 million rubles from taxi drivers under compulsory civil liability insurance policies for taxi carriers in 2024, and the number of insured events was three. The amount of compensation for them is 2 million rubles. Since the discussion stage of the introduction of the OSGOP, we have said that this is a redundant insurance product. All risks are covered by compulsory medical insurance, CTP, and special aggregator funds. Now this is confirmed by the figures.

Ingosstrakh officially announced the data on the purchase of OSGOP and insurance payments referred to by the chairman of US in March 2025.

The Digital World Platform Users Union has asked the Ministry of Transport to replace the compulsory insurance mechanism with collective insurance for carriers in order to reduce pressure on the industry. In particular, the union proposed to exempt self-employed drivers in personal vehicles operating through aggregators from compulsory carrier liability insurance, provided that they are insured through the platform.

"The main reason for the low involvement in insurance is the high barriers to entry into the industry," said Valery Korneev, chairman of the union. — Despite the relatively low cost of the policy, to purchase a CTP, you need to fulfill a number of requirements that require large financial investments: repaint the car for 100 thousand rubles, purchase a commercial CTP for 30 thousand rubles, pay for daily technical and medical examinations. In addition, some of these conditions cannot be fulfilled physically: there is no infrastructure for the same technical and medical examinations.

He recalled that the absence of an OSGOP agreement is the basis for suspending and then revoking a taxi permit. So, in the Sakhalin Region in December 2024, due to the absence of OSGOP contracts for carriers, more than half of the existing permits were cancelled at the same time. There were mass cancellations in St. Petersburg, Nenets Autonomous District, Khabarovsk Territory.

— If all regions comply with this requirement of the taxi law today, the registers of carriers will be empty. Taxis outside the Moscow agglomeration will cease to exist," he believes.

The appeal also states that, under the terms of the OSGOP agreement, the insurance company will pay compensation to the injured passenger, but then it can recover this amount from the driver if he has not completed a pre-trip medical and technical inspection, work and rest regime is violated.

"Given the lack of infrastructure for conducting daily pre— and post—trip inspections of self-employed carriers, drivers, for reasons beyond their control, will not be able to fulfill the mandatory insurance requirements and conditions and are guaranteed to fall into regression, which will be a catastrophic loss for them," the expert said.

MEFT (Izvestia has it) He also conducted a study on the impact of the policy on the legalization of the taxi market. The regional authorities characterized it as moderately positive. However, they noted the lack of independent initiative by carriers to issue this policy "due to additional financial costs and some difficulties in passing official procedures." According to the study, only 24% of carriers did not encounter problems with the implementation of OSGOP.