OREANDA-NEWS. July 29, 2008. Saratov-ROSNO branch held a roundtable "Insurance Instead of Licensing: Threats and Opportunities" in the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. The discussion concentrated on the replacement of licenses for certain business activities with obligatory insurance policies, reported the press-centre of ROSNO.

Among the participants of this event were representatives of the insurance company ROSNO, Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Saratov Region, Ministry of Healthcare and Social Development, Economics Committee of the Saratov City Administration, Saratov Regional Public Association for Protection of Consumer Rights, Municipal Children’s Hospital No.7, tourist company Laguna Tour, Ministry for Development of Transport Infrastructure, Guild of Enterprises and Entrepreneurs, Ministry of Construction and Communal Services, and the construction company Avista-Centre-Stroy. Journalists have taken active part in the roundtable discussion as well.

The main issue is publication of the RF President’s Decree on replacement of licensing with obligatory insurance or provision of financial guarantees, as well as the effect of such replacement on the tourism sector, where, since June 01’ 2007, the new amendments to the Law "On Principles of Tourism Activities in the Russian Federation" have been effective, obliging tour operators to provide annual guarantees from banks or insurance companies with regard to their business activities.

Mr. Dmitry Lebedev, head of the Saratov-ROSNO branch, opened the roundtable by noting that such replacement has long been overdue. "Unfortunately, in many fields, licensing is not efficient today", noted Mr. Dmitry Lebedev. "And to protect the client’s interests you have to have a reliable mechanism for reimbursement of damage caused by unintentional error in such fields as medicine, tourism, cargo haulage, passenger transportation, and construction." In the opinion of Mr. Lebedev, it would be incorrect to emburden the state with such a liability, when there are insurance companies, which possess all the resources required to protect the interests of both the clients and the companies operating in this field.

Discussing the need to insure professional liability, Mr. Valery Adamov, deputy head of the Entrepreneurship Development Department in the region’s Ministry of Economic Development, noted that the aggrieved persons do not always have an opportunity to take legal action and spend their time on enforcement of damages in court. "Let the insurance companies first pay compensations and then have their experts searching for a defendant", said Mr. Adamov. He also noted that, despite the fact that OMTPL had been initially criticized by everyone, the appearance of this type of insurance "has drastically reduced the number of criminal-related traffic accidents".

Mr. Dmitry Anpilogov, director of the tourist company Laguna-Tour, emphasized that, even before adoption on June 01’ 2007 of amendments to the RF Tourism Act related to the provision of financial guarantees, the company’s management had been examining the possibility of procuring voluntary insurance coverage of its liability.

Today, having such coverage, both the tour operators and their clients feel themselves more confident. When summing up the results of the roundtable discussion, its participants noted that it would be inappropriate to discuss only the complete cancellation of licensing and introduction of obligatory insurance. A mechanism combining these methods of control would be much more effective. According to the participants, it would be more reasonable to simplify and reduce the number of procedures necessary to obtain the license, and in such a setting to introduce professional liability insurance and sanitary-epidemiological insurance.