What to do if the insurance company refuses to issue a compulsory motor liability insurance policy?

Why does the insurance company refuse to insure your car?

Many car owners have encountered a situation where the insurer, under various pretexts, refused to enter into an MTPL agreement with them. All reasons for refusal can be divided into two groups - legal and illegal. If a driver is refused to issue a policy for a clearly far-fetched reason, he has the right to file a complaint against this organization with the supervisory authorities.

The most common reasons for refusal are:

• The link is not a technical problem - lack of connection with the SAR database, failures in the computer program, etc. The real reason here usually lies in the firm's attempts to optimize the costs of paying insurance compensation.
• Imposing additional paid services. This is considered a direct violation of Federal Law No. 2300-1 “On the Protection of Consumer Rights,” but some companies deliberately do this.
• Insufficient number of policies. This happens if a branch receives a limited number of policies due to low turnover.
• Revocation of the insurer's state license. Without this, the company has no right to enter into transactions with clients.
• The client provides an incomplete set of documentation, or the submitted papers contain some errors and inaccuracies.

If the car owner believes that he was denied a contract illegally , he can file a claim against this insurance company.

Why do insurers refuse to sell OSAGO?

The reasons why insurers refuse to sell compulsory motor liability insurance can be divided into legal and illegal.

The legal reasons why an organization has the legal right not to provide insurance are as follows.

1. Interruptions or complete absence of signal from the AIS RSA server. Without information from this database, it is impossible to find out the data for determining the coefficients and calculating the insurance premium.
2. The policyholder did not provide the vehicle for inspection. Controversial, but generally legal grounds.
3. The documents necessary for registration of compulsory motor liability insurance were not provided. In this case, the fault is solely the applicant's.
4. The policyholder is not the owner of the vehicle and does not have the necessary authority to conclude an insurance contract. In other words, he does not have a power of attorney.

Illegal reasons.

1. Refusal of the policyholder to insure life or receive any additional package of services. Receiving one service as a necessary condition for receiving another is prohibited by the Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights”.
2. Lack of forms for issuing a policy. The insurer is obliged to think about the required quantity in advance and if there are not enough of them, it is his problem.
3. The insurer's expectation of an increase in tariffs for insurance services. Such arrogance on the part of the insurance company is definitely not an argument.

How to file a complaint against an insurance company

Art. No. 426 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation indicates that every citizen has the right to independently choose where to purchase an MTPL policy. After submitting a complete set of necessary papers, insurance agency employees are required to conclude an insurance agreement with the car owner. The policy is issued on the day of application; in exceptional situations, the company is given three days for this.

In case of illegal denial of service, there are two options:

1. Contact another insurance company.
2. Seek to conclude an agreement with this insurer.

Expert opinion
Maria Mirnaya

Insurance expert

OSAGO calculator

In the second case, the law provides car owners with the opportunity to file a complaint with supervisory authorities. If the insurer refuses to insure under compulsory motor liability insurance, the first step is to file a claim with the management of the organization whose employees violate the current legislation. This can be done during a personal visit to the organization’s head office, by sending a complaint by registered mail, or through the insurer’s website.

If this does not lead to a positive result, the client needs to contact the regulatory authorities. This:

• RSA.
• Regional branch of the Central Bank.
• Prosecutor's office.
• Judicial authorities.
• Antimonopoly Service.

The complaint is made in free form, but with the obligatory indication of the data of the applicant, the violating company and a description of the circumstances of the problem that arose.

A sample application can be downloaded from this link.

What does the law say about this?

It’s good that in our time we can easily find legal acts in the public domain, and upon request on the Internet the most relevant one for us will come up. So, the law says that the insurance company is obliged to sell an MTPL policy to an interested client.

Refusal from a company can only occur for one of the compelling reasons, which we will discuss below. The lack of profit from this type of activity is not a valid reason for refusing a client. The policyholder, at his own discretion and desire, chooses the insurance company. If all required documents are in order, the client can purchase insurance.

The rules for issuing MTPL poles are regulated by two laws:

• Art. 426 Civil Code;
• Art. 1 of the Law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance”.

Any citizen of the Russian Federation can exercise the right to obtain a policy in the company that he likes based on circumstances known only to him.

Legal cases of refusal in compulsory motor liability insurance

However, sometimes there are real problems with the issuance of insurance. But the problem is daily in nature, and sometimes it is eliminated within an hour. And most likely, an experienced, honest manager will ask you to wait so that there is no need to return the next day.

The Russian Union of Auto Insurers has established only 4 good reasons for refusing auto insurance. These mainly include force majeure circumstances, such as:

• the system for issuing OSAGO policies is faulty at the moment;
• the company representative does not have his own personal power of attorney;
• the car owner did not bring all the documents;
• the vehicle did not undergo mandatory inspection.

Any other reasons violate current legislation.

What documents need to be attached

Along with the completed claim, the applicant will need to attach certain documents.

1. A copy of the applicant's passport to confirm his identity.
2. A certified second copy of the claim submitted to the insurance company.
3. Evidence confirming the fact of violation by the insurer of legal norms. This is a paper with an official refusal, photos and audio-video recordings, testimony of witnesses.

After receiving an application from the consumer, supervisory authorities order an inspection based on the facts stated in it. If it turns out that the refusal of compulsory motor insurance was illegal, the regulatory authorities issue a notice demanding that the violations be corrected.

What to do if you were illegally denied a policy

If you want to get a policy from this particular company, but they refuse, you will have to figure out the reasons for the refusal yourself. In this case, the insurance company’s refusal can be appealed.

Required documents

If you are stubborn and want to get a policy, a certain sequence of actions is necessary. Let the company employee write to you the reasons why it is impossible to obtain the service, or otherwise this is called a written refusal. In addition, the insurance company must send exactly the same decision to the RCA.

In order to file a protest, the following documents are required:

• contacting this insurance organization (application);
• refusal to sell the policy;
• evidence that will confirm the fact of application and refusal by the manager. This could be an audio recording of a conversation.

Any documents confirming auto insurance activities must be certified.

The main difficulty is in obtaining a written refusal, because this is a direct road to deprivation of a license for insurance services, that is, a ban on the main activities of the company. In addition, higher authorities will impose sanctions on the insurance company, most likely it will be a fine.

In such cases, a company employee officially voices any of the permitted reasons for non-provision of services listed above.

To record the refusal and force a written refusal to issue a policy, you can turn to video recording. Important point! All persons participating in the video recording must be warned about the fact of video recording, otherwise the video file will not be able to act as evidence of a violation of rights, since the video recording will be considered illegal, and the evidence will have no legal force.

It’s even better if you bring in witnesses to document the fact of the refusal of the sale.

Procedure for filing a complaint

If you intend to complete the business you started and for some personal reasons do not want to change the insurance company, then you will have to take your will into your fist and prepare for a very long process of challenging the decision.

Let us briefly describe the main stages that you will have to go through to file a complaint:

• Be sure to get a written refusal from the insurance manager, which will say that the sale of the MTPL policy has been refused.
• Warn the insurer's manager that you intend to appeal the decision. Usually, mention of a lawsuit, a fine, deprivation of a license and a complaint to the RSA bring quick results.
• Competently draft your appeal. You make a reference to paragraph 1 of Art. 4 of the Law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance” and paragraph 2 of Art. 16 of the Law “On Protection of Consumer Rights”.
• You send a complaint that they don’t want to sell you insurance to the regulatory authorities.

In the regulatory authorities, everything is also not simple. Only persons with appropriate authority are involved in considering the claim. The result of the claim consideration will be sent to you by registered mail.

Here is a list of bodies that are required to monitor the activities of insurance companies:

• RSA;
• Bank of Russia;
• Prosecutor's Office;
• Federal Antimonopoly Service.

At a minimum, an insurance company that violates the law will be issued a fine. The amount of the penalty is established by Art. 15.34.1 of the Code of Administrative Offences. The fine for officials is set at 50 thousand rubles.

Other actions

If you have already gone through all the previous stages and there is still no solution to the problem, there is another option to get out of the situation. This is a very sophisticated method, however, it has a place in legal practice.

The MTPL policy is a kind of mandatory liability agreement for absolutely all citizens of the Russian Federation, so car owners are ready for special tricks. You can send a personal statement by mail or bring it under your personal signature to an employee of the insurance company. In the second case, you will have to make sure that the submitted application is registered, and the incoming number and date of acceptance are written on its copy. These actions are considered a fact of civil liability insurance.

Now wait for the insured event and go to the insurer for compensation. The presence of two documents, such as a contract that is an offer and a statement confirming its acceptance, will force the insurance company to pay damages.

I would like to note that it will be much easier to find an honest company with reasonable rates and competent managers who will issue you a compulsory MTPL insurance policy without any problems.

What to do if there is no time to challenge the refusal

Consideration of the submitted application may take a long time. So, in courts this can take up to several months, depending on the judge’s workload. Therefore, in order to avoid lengthy litigation, you can simply apply for insurance from another organization, or apply for UISAGO via the Internet. When the insurer, as a condition of concluding a contract, makes a requirement to purchase an additional product, the client can use a little trick. He agrees to this condition, but within 5 days refuses additional services and takes back the money paid for them. This is allowed by Federal Law No. 2300-1.

Who should I contact?

With a complaint about illegal actions of insurance companies, the Policyholder can contact the FAS, Rospotrebnadzor, the Prosecutor's Office, the RSA, and the Bank of Russia. Describe the problem, attach documents confirming the fact of abuse of rights and a recording. Believe me, your complaints are considered, taken into account, and there are already visible results.

Since 2014, the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, art. 15.34.1 establishes the liability of the insurer for an unjustified refusal to conclude a public insurance contract or the imposition of additional services when concluding a compulsory insurance contract - 50 thousand rubles.

Thus, the Federal Antimonopoly Service of Chuvashia fined ROSGOSSTRAKH LLC for imposing voluntary insurance when concluding MTPL contracts. In addition, there are already precedents in judicial practice when Insureds went to court with claims for violation of consumer rights and the decisions were in their favor. In addition to the money they spent on paying for additional services, the court awarded moral damages and a fine under the Russian Federation Law “On the Protection of Consumer Rights.” The amount, of course, is small, but for some it is a matter of principle.

Let's not remain idle, but work together to achieve justice. Now you know exactly what to do if you are refused a MTPL policy.

When is refusal legal?

In some situations, the possibility of refusal to issue compulsory motor liability insurance is provided for by law. The company has full grounds to refuse to provide insurance in the following cases:

• Lack of connection with the AIS system, which does not allow calculations of the policy price.
• Refusal of the car owner to provide the car to assess its technical condition.
• Incomplete set of papers submitted by the policyholder.
• The policyholder who is not the owner of the vehicle does not have a notarized power of attorney from the owner of the car.

In all other cases, refusal to insure a vehicle is regarded as illegal .

What does the law say?

First, let's figure out what the legislation tells us in this case. The Federal Law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance” states that the owner of a vehicle is required to have a compulsory motor liability insurance policy. Also, the Federal Law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance” and Art. 426 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that the MTPL agreement is public, which means that the Insurer is obliged to conclude an agreement with everyone who applies to it. That is, if you apply for the conclusion of an MTPL agreement and attach all the necessary documents, then the insurance company does not have the right to refuse you this service. In addition, clause 2. Art. 16 of the Law of the Russian Federation “On the Protection of Consumer Rights” indicates that conditioning the acquisition of some goods with the mandatory purchase of others is prohibited.

Insurance companies apparently omit all these norms or the law is not written to them and continue to offer Insureds to enter into insurance contracts with a package of additional services or refer to the shortage of forms they have invented.

Reasons for refusal to issue MTPL

Difficulties during the execution of an MTPL agreement for car owners occur quite often in all regions of Russia. The Law “On Compulsory Motor Liability Insurance” (Part 1, Article 4 of Federal Law No. 40 of April 24, 2002) forces all vehicle owners to take out a civil liability insurance policy in case of damage to third parties. Thus, every car owner must have an MTPL policy, and its absence is the reason for the prohibition of operating the vehicle in accordance with Article 3 No. 40-FZ. At the same time, traffic police officers have the right to issue fines for lack of insurance.

At the same time, insurance companies licensed to insure civil liability of drivers are often reluctant to enter into such contracts for a number of reasons, the main one of which is the high unprofitability of this segment of services. In their opinion, the current tariffs are not commensurate with the cost of repairs and the prices of spare parts for cars, which are growing daily. In addition, in recent years, the car park in the country has significantly shifted towards more expensive imported cars, and this, in turn, affected the amount of average payments by insurers. Even the latest tariff increase could not change the situation for the better.

The main reasons for refusals to issue MTPL agreements include:

• increasing the payment limit to 400,000 rubles;
• introduction of a unified system for calculating losses;
• extension of the law protecting consumer rights to compulsory motor liability insurance;
• an increase in the cost of imported spare parts, leading to an increase in the amount of payments under compulsory motor liability insurance.

The unprofitability of this type of service forces many agencies to stop selling MTPL policies or even close their companies. But this state of affairs is not a basis for refusing to issue a policy to the owner of the vehicle.