Translated material
Main sanitary policy
Gennady Onishchenko shifts responsibilities to insurance companies
It is likely that Russian businessmen, whose products reach the end consumer and are capable of unwittingly causing damage to his health, will soon have to acquire a special insurance policy. Recently, a bill on compulsory sanitary and epidemiological insurance appeared on the website of the Federal Service for Surveillance on Consumer Rights Protection and Human Welfare (Rospotrebnadzor). The document suggests that all companies and individuals working with consumers must insure their liability in case of “harm to life, health, property of individuals, property of legal entities and the environment.” And, in fact, any activity involving the provision of services, production, transportation, storage and sale of products is subject to sanitary insurance. As follows from the official press release of Rospotrebnadzor, the author of the idea of such a grandiose insurance project, comparable in scale to the notorious OSAGO, belongs to the head of the department, the chief sanitary doctor of Russia Gennady Onishchenko, and its implementation on paper was carried out with the assistance of “leading insurance companies.”The leaders of Rospotrebnadzor are trying to explain the appearance of this bill right now by the need to carry out the orders of President Dmitry Medvedev , who recently announced the need to reduce administrative barriers for business. According to the developers of the document, compulsory sanitary and epidemiological insurance could partially replace licensing, facilitating the entry of new goods and services into markets and completely freeing the state from responsibility for their quality. After all, the bill implies a complete ban on the activities of companies that have not taken out insurance at the stage of sanitary and epidemiological examination of their products or services.
As follows from the draft, which contains 27 articles, every manufacturer, seller and company providing services will have to insure their liability to the consumer. To obtain a policy, which can become a kind of pass to the market, entrepreneurs will have to provide insurers with the necessary sanitary and epidemiological certificates for their products or a safety declaration. Insurance companies have the right to conduct their own examination in order to calculate the likelihood of an insured event and the amount of their losses from it. After all, if as a result of the actions of the insured person or as a result of consuming his goods, a person feels unwell, gets sick, or, worse, dies, it is the insurer who will be responsible for the damage caused. Interestingly, the document separately states that after payment of compensation the insurance company cannot bring a regressive claim against those directly responsible for the incident. However, the document emphasizes that such insurance is provided “solely for the purpose of compensating for damage and losses to the insured persons and other beneficiaries, and not to cover the mismanagement of organizations at the expense of the insured.”
But how beneficial this mechanism will be for consumers and potential business insurers can be judged only after the financial and economic justification for this project appears and tariffs and fees are established, according to the insurers themselves. “The idea may not be a bad one, but the document is very general, there are no specifics,” this is how Dmitry Kuznetsov, Deputy General Director of the Interregional Union of Medical Insurers, commented to Vremya Novostei on the appearance of the new document.
Rospotrebnadzor could not really explain why the bill turned out to be so crude. Apparently, this document came as a surprise to many department employees. In any case, the department for the protection of consumer rights and the department for regulatory support of Rospotrebnadzor told Vremya Novostey almost in unison that the bill was “first seen on the website” and had never heard of its preparation.
But representatives of large insurance companies were aware of the events, especially since only the leaders, no more than 10 companies out of 650 currently operating in this market, would theoretically be able to take part in the implementation of the project. All the rest simply do not meet the requirements set by the bill: at least two years of experience in “core” work and the presence of representatives in at least 30 subjects of the federation.
“This topic is not something new,” Zinaida Kuzmina, director of the financial risk and liability insurance department at Alfa-Strakhovanie, told Vremya Novostey. — It was first raised in 2005, when the Department of State Sanitary and Epidemiological Surveillance of the Russian Ministry of Health proposed introducing sanitary and epidemiological insurance as an experiment. This experiment in some regions of Russia included public catering enterprises and partly the food industry. To obtain permission from the SES authorities, the organization had to buy insurance. About ten insurance companies took part in the experiment. The insured amount ranged from 100 thousand to 1 million rubles, and the average premium was 3 thousand rubles.” Then this experience remained an experiment, since it did not receive support from legislators. But Alfa-Insurance has no doubt about the advisability of introducing a new type of service.
“This type of insurance is not new for us,” Oleg Poletaev, director of the insurance activities department of GUTA-Strakhovanie CJSC, confirmed to Vremya Novostei. -- Currently, our company provides such insurance protection in terms of quality liability insurance; we insured restaurants. And also regarding liability for violation of sanitary and epidemiological standards. For example, we insured a cheese production plant.”