Comment by lawyer Stoyan CHATALBASHEV
A week ago we witnessed mass protests across the country in the taxi industry. Cities throughout the country were blocked, the "Thrace" highway was blocked. The reason was the drastic increase in the price of "Civil Liability" insurance. of the taxi cars.
Yesterday, November 2, representatives of the same taxi industry threatened that after December 15, if adequate measures are not taken by the state regarding this drastic increase in the price of insurance, they will block the entire country, including the Christmas and New Year holidays.
I believe that there is no reason for more expensive Public Liability insurance for taxi cars.
First - it is not clear on the basis of what criteria and where the data is derived that taxi cars are those with a large number of damages and hence the price of their Civil Liability insurance is increased. Until now, there is no such official information in the public space, if we do not count an interview with the chairman of the Association of Bulgarian Insurers /ABZ/ and a message on the website of ABZ.
Therefore, it is not permissible in this way without specific information about the number and amount of damage caused by taxi cars and without prior discussion to raise insurance prices so drastically.
In my opinion, the price of GO insurance for a taxi car should not differ in price from the insurance of a normal car. But there will always be speculation about the prices of the insurance for private persons, for individual groups of professions or activities, as long as the insurance is made for the respective motor vehicle and not for the driver. Thus, there will always be a reason to raise the price of a certain group such as that of taxi cars or trucks or some such group of cars. When the GO insurance starts to be issued to the relevant driver, then everything will fall into place.
As I have written before that you cannot insure the liability of property. The liability of the one who manages the estate is insured because his actions or inactions lead to the admission or non-admission of a road accident, and hence the payment of insurance benefits. Adopting this approach of insuring the respective motor vehicle and having an increase for the respective motor vehicle, we are currently faced with the paradox of a person as a taxi driver paying BGN 3,000 for third-party insurance, and as the owner of a personal motor vehicle paying BGN 300 for insurance. This is unfair, to say the least, and can clearly resemble the wrong approach when taking out OH insurance.
When the liability of the respective driver starts to be insured, each insured will be able to drive even 5 cars with a single insurance - this his personal insurance, without having to pay for 5 personal or company cars separate insurance.
This is fully in keeping with the spirit of the bonus-malus system that should have been adopted long ago. This also protects the interests of the individual driver of a taxi or truck, as well as the owners of commercial companies developing taxi or transport activities.
Why should I, as a disciplined taxi driver, have to pay more because an undisciplined colleague committed an offense that resulted in damage to the insurer. Or what is the fault of the owner of a transport or taxi company, that one of his employees committed a violation and did not comply with the traffic law, this led to damages for the insurer and, accordingly, next year he has to pay an increased premium.
The insurance of the particular offending driver should be increased and if he is unable to pay for the insurance due to the high cost, he should change his profession and no longer be a taxi or truck driver. This will also lead to a reduction in the number of road accidents, because undisciplined drivers will stop driving vehicles for economic reasons.
But this will hardly be allowed by the insurance companies because at the moment if a company for taxi transport or for freight transport owns 100 vehicles, they will increase the price of 100 cars, and in the case when the insurance is made on the specific driver will increase the insurance of only one person.
In my opinion, legislative changes should be initiated and that the driver of the motor vehicle should be insured, not the car. Only in this way will it be possible to have clear criteria for determining the price of liability insurance and to avoid such unjustified increases.
Seriously attention should be paid to this problem because it is a question of mandatory insurance, which the driver of a motor vehicle has no choice whether to take it or not, and the price cannot be determined by unclear criteria and without economic justification whether its price is inflated or not. Compulsory insurance should not be used to extract excess profits on the backs of consumers of insurance services.