OREANDA-NEWS. July 30, 2008. The Federal Insurance Supervision Department has held a meeting regarding ROSNO’s reimbursement of losses to the Russian tourists who suffered from the non-performance by the tour operator DETOUR of its obligations under the tour product sales contracts, reported the press-centre of ROSNO.

Among the meeting participants were the Head of the Federal Insurance Supervision Department Mr. Ilya Lomakin-Rumyantsev, First Deputy CEO/COO of ROSNO Mr. Dmitry Popov, First Vice-President of the Association of Russian Tour Operators Mr. Vladimir Kantorovich, and Director of ROSNO’s Centre for Liability Insurance Ms. Galina Goulyaeva.

ROSNO addressed FSSN, alarming the latter that not all of the aggrieved tourists will be able to compensate their losses by using financial security — a contract of insurance of civil liability of tour operator. The insurance coverage limit under the liability insurance contract concluded by DETOUR is 10 mln. roubles, while the volume of losses submitted by the aggrieved tourists to ROSNO already exceeds 18 mln. roubles. The new claims of tourists continue to arrive, on a daily basis, to the hotline specifically opened by the insurer, and are of mass nature.
 
The FSSN meeting also discussed the issue related to the stipulation of law "On the Principles of the Tourist Activities in the Russian Federation" to conduct pro rata payments only if more than one tourist at a time applied to the insurer for payment of compensation exceeding the insurance amount. In the DETOUR case, applications of the aggrieved tourists began to arrive on June 30, and their number is growing by the day. Therefore, it is impossible to ascertain simultaneity and, hence, to use proportion on a lawful basis.

Also, the meeting participants shared ROSNO’s view that, in this situation, regardless of the selected insurance compensation payment method, the statutory limit of financial coverage, which is 10 mln. roubles, will not enable full compensation of the damage inflicted to each of the tourists having suffered from DETOUR. Therefore, one has to expect that the majority of tourists will take legal action to recover the damage they suffered from DETOUR, including lost benefit and moral damage.

The meeting participants underlined the need to find lawful ways to satisfy financial claims of those tourists who have still received no compensation after fulfillment by ROSNO of its payment obligations within the limit of insurance amount under the insurance contract. The parties have agreed to continue negotiations on the prompt resolution of this problem.