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- The engine of regression: they plan to recover CTP damages from those responsible for the accident
The engine of regression: they plan to recover CTP damages from those responsible for the accident
Insurance companies may be required to impose regressive CTP requirements on the perpetrators of accidents. We are talking about cases with aggravating circumstances — when the driver was drunk, did not have a license, left the scene of the accident, etc. The relevant bill has been prepared for submission to the State Duma. Now insurance companies have the right to file such claims, but they practically do not use them. As a result, they lose billions of rubles and actually shift these costs to bona fide drivers, increasing CTP tariffs, the authors of the initiative believe. The new law, in their opinion, will allow not only to avoid an increase in the cost of policies, but also to increase the limits on insurance payments. Experts, however, are not sure about the effectiveness of the proposed measure.
What new CTP standards do the deputies want to introduce?
The State Duma wants to change the terms of use of CTP for drivers guilty of an accident with aggravating circumstances. If the violator was drunk, drove without a license, fled the scene of the accident, etc., insurance companies will be required to present regressive claims to this person — that is, first to compensate the injured driver, and then through the court to take these funds from the culprit of the accident, even if he has a CTP policy. A bill introducing such a mechanism has been prepared for submission to the State Duma by Yaroslav Nilov, head of the Committee on Labor, Social Policy and Veterans' Affairs.
CTP recourse is a legally established right (but not yet an obligation) After payment to the victim, the insurance company must demand that the person responsible for the accident refund the amount paid (in whole or in part) if the terms of the civil liability insurance contract have been violated.
Among the grounds for filing a recourse: the driver was driving under the influence of alcohol, drugs, or psychotropic substances; the culprit of the accident did not have a driver's license, or his license was expired or withdrawn; the culprit was not included in the policy (if the CTP policy was issued with a restriction on the list of approved drivers); the driver responsible for the accident fled the scene.
The aim of the initiative is to form a more equitable tariff policy for CTP, as well as reduce the risks of shifting the cost of insurance from unscrupulous policyholders to other car owners, according to an explanatory note to the bill (available from Izvestia).
The fact is that, although insurance companies have the right to file recourse claims, they practically do not use it. "In 2023 and 2024 alone, CTP insurers did not exercise their right of recourse against unscrupulous policyholders in the amount of 5.7 billion rubles, which is more than 98% of the total amount of such claims," the authors of the bill note, citing official data from the National Insurance Information System.
As a result, the lack of cash flows to the CTP system from unscrupulous car owners is compensated by an increase in the insurance tariff for all policyholders, the explanatory note emphasizes. The deputies consider this situation to be "unfair, contributing to the growth of social tension."
Amendments to the law will make it possible to exclude the voluntary refusal of the insurer from actions aimed at obtaining funds from unscrupulous drivers as a result of an accident, the authors of the initiative note.
The document submitted to the State Duma is also intended to remove one of the barriers that allegedly prevents insurers from collecting such funds, namely, legal proceedings — going to court entails time and monetary costs, which are often more than the amount of the claim itself. The bill introduces simplified writ proceedings for insurers to recover damages for regressive claims. The explanatory note says that, according to information from individual insurers, the removal of relevant barriers will reduce the time for recovery of recourse to 40%, increase the recovery rate to 90%.
— The bill was prepared together with auto experts, as well as with the participation of specialists from insurance companies. On the one hand, we see that car repairs are becoming more expensive, but insurance payments are not increasing. And when the issue is raised, insurance companies immediately declare that they need to increase tariffs for this. With this bill, we show that we don't need to increase anything, but just use the mechanisms that already exist more effectively," Yaroslav Nilov explained to Izvestia.
As a result, the adoption of amendments to the law will create conditions for curbing the growth of CTP tariffs, the authors of the initiative believe.
Izvestia sent requests to the Central Bank and the government with a request to assess the prospect of supporting the bill.
Will the new rules help to avoid the growth of CTP tariffs
The Russian Union of Motor Insurers (RSA) refrained from commenting on the bill itself, as they were not familiar with it, while acknowledging that insurance companies do not always recover damages for regressive claims.
— Currently, the CTP law grants the insurer the right to send a claim of recourse to the person who caused the harm. Of course, when making such a decision, the insurer evaluates a number of circumstances, ranging from the amount of the payment to its assessment of the prospects for a legal dispute with the harm—doer, the RSA explained. — Often, especially in the case of relatively small payments, the costs (real and expected) of conducting such a recourse case turn out to be quite large, and the insurer refuses to exercise its right.
According to the head of the ONF working group "Protection of Motorists' Rights", auto expert Peter Shkumatov, the bill is long overdue.
— The right of recourse arises in case of sufficiently gross violations of the insurance conditions. Of course, insurance companies are not required to pay for their losses, but now they are doing it," he told Izvestia.
According to Peter Shkumatov, it is not very profitable for insurers to do this, since the average CTP loss today is around 100 thousand rubles, but it can be 5 thousand or 10 thousand rubles.
— In some cases, it will be more expensive to sue the person responsible for the accident than not to go to court. Therefore, the position of insurance companies is clear here, and something needs to be done about it. But I don't think this will be able to restrain the growth of tariffs, especially since they are falling: the average cost of CTP is decreasing every year," he said.
It would be more correct not to oblige insurers to sue over, for example, 5 thousand, but to oblige them to transfer these "debts" to specialized debt collection organizations, the same collectors, the expert believes.
Anton Shaparin, President of the National Automobile Union, on the contrary, was skeptical about the initiative.
— Insurance companies will receive money for regressive claims, and will lobby for tariff increases. Therefore, this bill is clearly not in the interests of car owners," the expert said.
In his opinion, there are different cases, which is why the law now prescribes judicial proceedings so that judges thoroughly understand the incident before passing their verdict.
Переведено сервисом «Яндекс Переводчик»
