What insurer doesn’t like to drive fast

Electric scooters from children’s fun are rapidly turning into a means of mass transportation. They are regularly used by millions of fellow citizens in Russian cities. At the same time, trips on such mechanisms are not without risks both for the users themselves and for those around them. Participants in the insurance market also drew attention to this, offering unobtrusive insurance, especially since insurance of other vehicles is extremely unprofitable from the point of view of the industry.

The launch of Yurent scooter insurance was recently announced by one of the market leaders, Ingosstrakh. Previously, similar services were launched by Renaissance Insurance, Zetta Insurance, and TIT Insurance. The interlocutor of Kommersant from among the insurers added that such insurance is an optional type, so market participants themselves set the rules. According to a Kommersant source, now insurers are implementing one model for selling a policy – it is automatically enabled when the service is activated, but it is possible to refuse by unchecking the appropriate boxes.

The insurance premium itself does not look excessive. In particular, Ingosstrakh has insurance against an accident, as a result of which both the user and others may suffer if they are injured in a collision, or the scooter damages the car, it will cost 35 rubles. for the trip.

Meanwhile, for example, the price of unlocking a scooter at Yurent can reach 60 rubles, and a minute of rental will cost 9 rubles. Taking into account the fact that the average duration of a trip in 2022 was 15–20 minutes, that is, the cost of insurance is 15–18% of the total cost of the trip.

It is clear that the service appeared not so long ago, and refusal of it is a matter of habit of customers, as happened with various subscriptions to “free” services or when buying tickets. And even in these cases, as it turns out, far from everyone has learned to remove the checkmarks (see Kommersant of April 11).

However, supervisory authorities are actively fighting this type of misseling. The Bank of Russia, in particular, says that the practice of pre-established consent on the websites and mobile applications of insurance agents is unacceptable. Together with Rospotrebnadzor, a joint information letter was issued about this in March 2022. Since then, the regulator has conducted several rounds of monitoring the implementation of the recommendations. At the same time, the number of complaints received by the Central Bank on this issue is insignificant, which can be explained by the low cost of the product.

Nevertheless, the persistence of the problem at many levels, including air tickets, may force the mega-regulator to take up the scooter direction, which, due to its novelty and dubious safety, is still well known.