July 24, 2013, 00:00

OSAGO was not allowed on the Internet

The government is making it easier for insurers to sell policies online, but not in the most mass market - MTPL. Officials are afraid that the police will not be able to check the electronic policy Yuri Nekhaychuk In the coming years, you will have to buy MTPL policies the old fashioned way / E. Kuzmina / Vedomosti

The government has submitted to the State Duma a draft law on the use of digital signatures when selling insurance policies (Vedomosti has it). It allows online sales of policies in simple types of voluntary insurance: accidents traveling abroad, medical and property insurance when no inspection is required (including auto hull insurance).

Currently, a contract with an insurer must be sealed with a traditional signature or a qualified electronic signature, which consumers most often do not have. If the amendments are adopted, the contract will be “formed using the infrastructure of the insurer’s official website and signed with a simple electronic signature” (see inset), says the explanatory note to the project: the insurer itself will send it to the buyer with a qualified signature.

The amendments make life more difficult for insurance intermediaries: brokers and agents will need an enhanced electronic signature of the policyholder to sell an electronic policy. But at the same time they do not affect the most widespread type of insurance - compulsory motor liability insurance. An exception was made, in particular, due to the lack of “universal access to the automated OSAGO information system” among traffic cops, the explanatory note says.

The idea of electronic MTPL policies is relevant and meets the needs of policyholders, “but today there are a number of unresolved technical difficulties,” says a representative of the Russian Union of Auto Insurers (RUA). Earlier, First Deputy Prime Minister Igor Shuvalov instructed the RSA and the Ministry of Internal Affairs to work on the issue of information exchange between their systems. “We are now working on the possibility of exchanging information and connecting the RSA database as part of the transfer of data on technical inspection,” explains Vladimir Kuzin, Deputy Head of the Main Directorate for Road Safety of the Ministry of Internal Affairs. When this work is completed, it will be possible to verify OSAGO policies, although in In general, this is a question for insurers.

The exclusion of compulsory motor liability insurance from electronic sales is an omission of this bill, Evgeniy Potapov, general director of Spasskiye Vorota, is sure: for integration, you just need to equip traffic police officers with special scanners and give them access to the compulsory motor liability insurance system. The introduction of online sales of MTPL policies will require time to prepare, notes Liberty Insurance CEO Sergei Kovalchuk, but they will reduce the cost of the policy or, at least, not increase it when liability limits increase. According to Potapov, online sales of MTPL will solve problems with exorbitant commissions of intermediaries and theft of forms. “MTPL is the locomotive of the market, now this locomotive is being transferred to offline sidings,” Dmitry Baginsky, head of the Sberbank Insurance department, is dissatisfied. Online MTPL would significantly damage the positions of insurers with federal networks, for which MTPL is the basis of sales. “I don’t want to think about the lobby, but apparently their interests are taken into account,” he notes.