Financiers criticize the bill regulating the repayment of consumer loans through insurance

Financiers and insurers are criticizing the bill, which should regulate the payment of loan debt through insurance in the event of the death of the borrower. In the proposed form, the new norms are impossible to implement: the creditor has no information about the occurrence of an insured event, insurers are not obliged, and also cannot always notify banks. The borrower or his heirs can do this, but they do not always do this. However, the problem exists; according to human rights activists, 10–15% of all complaints against banks occur in cases where borrowers or their heirs were forced to repay the loan from their own funds in the presence of insurance.

As Kommersant learned, the National Council of the Financial Market (NCFM) sent to the Duma an opinion on a bill (preparing for the second reading) regulating the repayment of consumer loans through insurance. The explanatory note to it notes that banks often require repayment of the debt in the event of the death of the borrower from his heirs at the expense of their own funds, and not insurance, which they may not know about. The draft law assumes that the bank will not be able to collect under a consumer loan agreement before submitting a corresponding demand to the insurer.

The letter from the NSFR states that the bank may not have information about the occurrence of an insured event. As Andrey Emelin, head of the NSFR, explained to Kommersant, information about the fact that the borrower applied for medical care, his state of health and diagnosis constitutes a medical secret. “The provision by the insurer of the necessary documents confirming the occurrence of an insured event will conflict with the law,” he says. As a result, according to him, the bank’s requirement to the insurance company to pay compensation will depend only on the insured person or his heirs, from whom not only information about the occurrence of an insured event, but also documents confirming this must be received.

At the same time, Andrey Emelin clarifies, in practice there are cases when insurance compensation is sent to the borrower’s bank account, despite the fact that the beneficiary under the insurance contract is the creditor. Further, the borrower or his heirs can use these funds for any purpose. The NSFR proposes to write into the law a rule according to which the bank, upon receipt of funds from the insurance company to the borrower’s account, must, within five days, use them to pay off the debt without the consent of the debtor. The latter has no right to dispose of funds during this period.

At the same time, the vice-president of the Association of Russian Banks, Alexey Voylukov, believes that such problems need to be solved not through amendments to the law, but with the help of regulations of the Central Bank, which is the regulator for both banks and insurers.

The head of the legal directorate of Sovcombank Insurance, Igor Dyachishin, also does not see the need to adopt the bill under consideration. “We think it is excessive; in practice, 99% of the compensation paid in bank insurance products goes to repay borrowed obligations,” he is sure.

However, according to the People’s Front project “For Borrowers’ Rights”, 10-15% of all complaints against banks occur in cases where borrowers and their heirs are forced to repay the loan from their own funds if they have an insurance policy after the occurrence of an insured event.

The insurers themselves assure that there are no problems with payments to banks under agreements with borrowers.

The All-Russian Union of Insurers notes that difficulties are mainly associated with two situations: when the insurer, heirs and credit institution cannot obtain documents about the insured event and when for a long time it is not possible to identify the heir.

Meanwhile, Soglasie Insurance Company clarifies that the insurer has no obligation to notify the bank about an insured event with the borrower. On the contrary, the company claims, if the beneficiary is a bank, then it is the bank that is obliged to notify the insurer about an event “that has signs of an insured event.”

Maxim Builov, Yulia Poslavskaya