One-day MTPL policies are now available to drivers

From March 2, according to the amendments to the legislation that have come into force, in Russia you can issue a short-term auto insurance policy with a validity period from one day to three months. Such MTPL policies will be convenient, for example, for owners of vintage cars or citizens who decide to work as taxi drivers for a short time. Insurers, who were skeptical about the idea of ​​short MTPL policies from the very beginning, warned that the service would be expensive. Rates will most likely be at least 20% of the cost of regular annual insurance in any case.

Until now, the default validity period of the MTPL agreement was one year. At the same time, it was allowed to buy insurance for up to 20 days, if a citizen needs to travel by vehicle from the place of purchase to the traffic police, or a policy valid for five days, if the car is registered abroad and is temporarily used in the Russian Federation. You can also take out a seasonal policy – for three (or more) months a year. In 2022, according to the Central Bank, Russians took out 488 thousand three-month policies – 15% of the total number of MTPL contracts.

The amendments that have entered into force make it possible to conclude a motor vehicle contract for a period from one day to three months. The bill was proposed by the LDPR in 2022, supported by the government and adopted in the summer of 2023. Agreements on such terms, the Central Bank explained, may be in demand by car owners who rarely use their cars, for example, owners of a vintage car. The Russian Union of Insurers (RUA) also talked about interest in short-term policies on the part of taxi drivers. When calculating the price of short-term insurance, companies are required to use a reduction factor, the size of which insurers, the Central Bank explained, determine independently.

“The right of companies to determine the size of the reduction coefficient for short-term policies will become a precedent when the insurer de facto can freely determine the cost of a motor vehicle policy,” says Evgeny Ufimtsev, president of the Russian Union of Motor Insurers. Tariffs for regular compulsory motor liability insurance, let us remind you, are strictly regulated by price corridors and coefficients established by the Bank of Russia.

According to Kommersant, an independent actuarial information and analytical center, commissioned by the Central Bank, carried out calculations according to which even a one-day policy, based on the existing risks, cannot cost less than 20% of the annual price. That is, if the price of annual insurance is, say, 5 thousand rubles, then a one-day policy, following everyday logic, should cost 13.6 rubles. (1/365 of 5 thousand rubles), however, according to actuaries’ calculations, it will cost at least 1 thousand rubles. This approximately coincides with the calculations that were previously published by the VSK Insurance House: a 12-month policy for an accident-free driver with 20 years of driving experience in a Lada Granta will cost 5.7 thousand rubles, a 10-day policy will cost 1 thousand rubles. (reduction factor 0.18). “The shorter the contract, the more unprofitable it is; the cost of a one-day contract cannot be equal to 1/365 of the annual one,” explained RSA.

In order to combat fraud when concluding short-term policies, the law on compulsory motor liability insurance provides for a so-called temporary franchise, reminds Evgeny Ufimtsev: the contract will come into force only three days after its conclusion, which will avoid cases of concluding contracts when, for example, an accident has already happened. A similar franchise, we recall, applies to electronic compulsory motor liability insurance.

Such policies will most likely be in demand among part-time taxi drivers, for whom we are talking about rare temporary part-time jobs, says Mikhail Petryaev, head of the motor insurance underwriting department at Absolute Insurance. “Motorists who rarely drive, the so-called snowdroppers, who generally do not use their cars in winter, will also buy policies,” he believes.

Short policies were conceived as a way to solve the problem of unavailability of policies for taxis (insurers charge too high a price or do not sell them at all), recalls Anton Shaparin, vice-president of the National Automobile Union. “But at the prices indicated – more than 1 thousand rubles. per day, this is of no interest to anyone, it’s easier to buy an annual one right away,” the expert believes. Even taking this into account, the opportunity to buy such insurance is a new convenient chance, the author of the amendments that entered into force, State Duma Deputy Yaroslav Nilov (LDPR), is sure.

Ivan Buranov