Armenian taxi drivers to be the first to "answer" for OSAGO

ArmInfo. According to the draft tariff policy published by the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Armenia, taxi drivers will become holders of the most expensive OSAGO policy in Armenia. As Executive Director of the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Armenia Vahan Avetisyan told ArmInfo, the maximum cost of the policy for this category of drivers will make up 124,000 drams. "Such a tariff is too rarely met in practice", Avetisyan said. According to him, such a tariff "threatens" taxi drivers (drivers of a route and rented car) with the highest degree of risk, in particular, those aged less than 23, with a driving experience of less than three years, the engine capacity of 231 and more horsepower and unlimited number of persons admitted to drive. One has to agree that such drivers constitute quite a serious threat for a society, if any such exists in Armenia, Avetisyan said. The minimum tariff makes up 37.5 thsd drams. According to him, it would be at least unfair to establish a common standard, an averaged policy cost for all drivers. You see, thousands of our citizens use taxi drivers' services every day, so, this group of drivers, by the way, the most undisciplined, is responsible for their lives and health. In view of this, the insurance policy cost for taxi drivers cannot and should not be equal to the cost of the policy of an ordinary driver.

Avetisyan recalls that the policy cost is formed based on the prime cost of the policy (it makes up 37.3 thsd drams according to the plan) and 4 correction factors which must take into account the statistics of insurance cases. The matter concerns the driving experience and the driver's age (2 factors are united into one coefficient), purposes of using the vehicle, the number of the persons admitted to drive and the engine capacity. The last factor, the engine capacity, arouses an extremely negative and even aggressive response among owner-drivers. When commenting on the necessity of applying this factor, Avetisyan said the capacity and volume of the engine of a vehicle under insurance enhances the likelihood of serious damages in case of road traffic accidents. "This coefficient is applied in almost all the countries and it should not make the blood boil, since a powerful engine allows to pick up high speed that, in its turn, may become a reason of a more serious damage in case of RTA".

According to Avetisyan, besides the afore-listed factors of riskiness, another two factors will also be taken into account a certain period later, supposedly in a year after introduction of OSAGO, during calculation of the correction factor. It will be difficult to determine these additional factors at the first stages of OSAGO implementation, and it may even cause great tension in the society. In particular, it is a point of psychological and physiological state of a driver as of the time of insurance, as well as the mileage. The 5 factors of riskiness will be replenished with the 6th factor, the driver's behavioral history, started 2013. Avetisyan assures that all these factors are necessary for more or less adequate calculation of the policy cost. According to him, the range of the maximum and minimum cost of the policy will insignificantly change with increase of the number of factors. "These additional factors will allow to determine the drivers' riskiness degree more accurately".

According to the Bureau's tariff plan, the minimum cost of OSAGO policy with application of the minimum correction factors for drivers using a vehicle for different purposes, will make up 26.1 thsd drams, the maximum cost - with application of the maximum correction factors -will make up 86.6 thsd drams for such drivers. The public transport drivers with the lowest risk degree will pay 42.3 thsd drams for insurance, those with the highest risk degree - 63.3 thsd drams. The OSAGO policy cost for the company vehicle drivers will make up 26.9 thsd drams at least, and 89.2 thsd drams at the most.

According to Avetisyan, the tariff policy developed by the Bureau, will allow to assure profitability of this product at the rate of no more than 5% of the policy cost, and profitability in 2-3 years may be even zero, that, according to the Bureau director, is not a bad indicator.

As Avetisyan said, it turned out quite difficult to calculate the OSAGO policy cost. "There is a problem of absence of real statistics by the number of RTA, and the official statistics sharply deviates from the real one". Moreover, the data of the Road Police by the number of RTA are almost equal to the data received from the insurance market. "Unfortunately, we could not take just the official statistics as a basis for calculation of the policy cost, therefore, we had to use also the estimates by corresponding experts". According to the official data, 1374 RTA (crashes) were registered in Armenia in 2009. According to the data of insurance companies, the number of crashes in 2009 made up 1251. "To note, just 17,000 vehicles in Armenia out of the existing 400,000 ones have been insured. It is not difficult to understand how much seriously the real statistics deviates from the official one.

To note, the Bureau Council session will be held on October 6, 2010, to approve the draft tariff policy of calculation of OSAGO policy. On October 7, the draft policy will be submitted to the Central Bank of Armenia for approval, and it will take effect 10 days later. After that, insurers will be enabled to start selling policies.