No steering wheel, no tires – Newspaper Kommersant No. 162 (7363) dated 09/05/2022

The Bank of Russia has published new base rates for OSAGO, which will be applied from 13 September. The price corridor of “autocitizen” is expanding by 26%. The Central Bank promises that insurance will rise in price only for careless drivers who often get into accidents, while disciplined motorists, on the contrary, will pay less. Neat car owners should not pay extra for “toxic categories of drivers,” the Russian Union of Insurers agrees. The Central Bank made the decision to expand the corridor after a 30% increase in the cost of spare parts.

The Bank of Russia published new regulations calculation of OSAGO tariffs (approved by the instructions of the Central Bank, registered with the Ministry of Justice), which will come into effect on September 13. The main innovation is the possibility for insurance companies to raise and lower the base cost of a policy within a certain price corridor: it expands by 26% in both directions.

Today, recall, for the owner of a car, the base price of OSAGO is 2.2–5.9 thousand rubles, and according to the new rules it will be 1.6–7.5 thousand rubles. For owners of motorcycles and mopeds, the range changes from 0.4-2 thousand to 0.3-2.5 thousand rubles, for taxi drivers – from 2-12.5 thousand to 1.5-15.7 thousand rubles . respectively. For public transport, the tariff corridor is expanding by 17.8% – from 3.7–7.7 thousand rubles. up to 3-9.1 thousand rubles.

To calculate the final price of the policy, the base rate, we recall, is also multiplied by various coefficients that increase or decrease.

The new instruction of the Central Bank increases the territorial coefficients from September 13: in Makhachkala – from 0.9 to 0.96, in Nazran, Kyzyl, Sevastopol, Birobidzhan, Krasnokamensk, Baikonur and throughout Chechnya – from 0.76 to 0.82.

The system of coefficients “bonus-malus” (CBM), age-experience and the rest do not change.

This is not the first time the Central Bank has changed tariffs. In January 2019, the tariff corridor was expanded by 20%, in September 2020 another 10%. This time, the adjustment was required after the “actuarial calculations” were carried out, the Central Bank reported, and the rise in price of spare parts, the cost of which is covered by OSAGO during repairs. “Rise in prices will have a greater impact on the cost of policies for policyholders with high risks,” the Bank of Russia said. “Due to the lower limit of the corridor, insurers will be able to offer drivers with lower risks more favorable conditions. We hope that this will help curb the rise in OSAGO prices.”

The expansion of the tariff corridor, Evgeny Ufimtsev, executive director of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers (RSA), said on Sunday, continues “the course begun to individualize tariffs, when careful car owners do not pay extra for toxic categories of drivers.” The ability to apply a higher base rate, he said, “is a powerful economic incentive to drive more carefully.”

In 2022, Evgeny Ufimtsev noted, the OSAGO market faced with the departure of a number of auto parts manufacturers from Russia and, as a result, a sharp rise in the cost of components (almost 30%, according to the latest PCA data).

But, he said, thanks to the competition between companies for accident-free customers, the growth of the average premium on OSAGO has not yet exceeded 10% since the beginning of the year. The Central Bank said that in August the average premium even decreased, but did not provide specific figures.

Even taking into account the expansion of the price corridor, the compensation paid to the victims for repairs will not be enough even when used spare parts are used, says Anton Shaparin, vice president of the National Automobile Union. PCA, he explains, refers to spare parts directories, prices in which are underestimated by 30-70% compared to real market prices. “And the cost of a standard hour for services has been at a ridiculously low level for years,” says Mr. Shaparin. “In Moscow, it is 1,050 rubles for Porsche, 860 rubles for Hyundai, and 710 rubles for Lada. There are no such prices and cannot be. As a result, the expert says, many drivers refuse to buy OSAGO, and now their number will increase dramatically, and in some regions, motorists simply cannot buy a policy, because insurers do not sell them. “Within a few years, the number of car owners without a “car citizen” will become critical, and the OSAGO system will simply fall apart,” predicts Anton Shaparin.

Ivan Buranov