Playing victim
The «International confederation of consumers’ associations» (ConfOP) jointly with Consumers International checked the work of Russian insurance companies. The monitoring was done within the framework of the project of the Ministry of Finance on improving the financial education of the populace. It was discovered that the insurers did not want to tell the whole truth about their services to their clients, leaving for themselves a field for abuses. Paradoxically, the insurance companies manage to play victim in such conditions. They complain about growing losses and keep gorging on the Russians.
Information vacuum
The report on the results of the independent monitoring (Lenta.ru has it at its disposal) lists the most acute problems, which the clients of the insurers face. All of them are due to the lack of information in some way. Dmitry Yanin, Chairman of the Board of ConfOP, complains: “Insurance companies are not prepared to explain to the people in a transparent and understandable way all material conditions of an insurance agreement”.
First, the websites of insurance companies contain no “necessary and true” information. 25 largest organizations have been “targeted” (no names were specified). The report says that not a single one of those has published a sample agreement on the Internet. And only in four per cent of all cases the client may learn about the losses, which are not to be reimbursed in the case of an insured accident.
Second, the terms of insurance are often formulated in a confusing and incorrect way. The document says: “Only one organization of those 25 sets the rules out as a clear and logical set of conditions, which causes no problems understanding them”.
Third problem – imposition of services. For example, when executing a mortgage, the bank assigns the borrower to “its own” insurance company, even while the client, as per the law, may choose one freely. Sometimes franchise is included in the CASCO agreement without the automobile owner’s knowledge (the service’s price becomes lower due to the discount, but the client receives less money after the crash – for the amount of the discount). Et cetera <...>
Ekaterina Baglaeva, Associate of the Yukov and Partners Bar Association, points out that drawing up of an insurance agreement is not regulated as strictly as is the case with credit agreements. Currently the document needs to specify the following parameters: who or what is being insured; insured accidents; and the term of the agreement. Rodion Smirnov, Advocate of the Law Firm "YUST", adds that additional terms are set in the insurance rules of each separate company. And the client, who signs the agreement, agrees to those rules. Such rules (they are quite extensive – dozens of pages long) might contain conditions, which are discriminatory to the consumer.
Rankings and Partners
