OREANDA-NEWS. September 10, 2012. Preliminary figures indicate that the company’s receipt from the insurance premium of citizens traveling abroad (passenger insurance, medical expenses insurance, baggage insurance and trip cancelation insurance) amounted to 386.6 m RUB in the first six months of 2012, which represents a 10% increase in gains as compared with the same period of 2011. Our regional branch network accounted for 19% of the insurance premium.

Within six months of the current year Ingosstrakh Insurance Company paid around 196.4 m RUB as insurance compensations, which is approximately equal to the level of the first six months of 2011. The company settled 27,015 insurance events (a 6% increase compared with the same period of 2011). An average payment was 250 USD. The largest payments were made to compensate medical treatment in Spain and the Czech Republic, amounting to 13,000 EUR (leg injury) and 19,500 EUR (stroke) accordingly. A woman, injured at one of the ski resorts in Andorra, was also paid compensation for her treatment and medical evacuation to Russia in the amount of over 12,500 EUR.

Specially for sport fans, Ingosstrakh Insurance Company launched a series of new insurance products in the first six months of 2012, developed for citizens traveling abroad – “Heading to a football match” and “Heading to London”. These types of insurances were offered to football supporters before the European Football Cup 2012 and those, going to London for the XXX Summer Olympics. 510 people bought these insurances.

Insuring tour operators, Ingosstrakh Insurance Company earned 14.3 m RUB in the first six months of 2012. The figure proves to be lower by 18% than that of the same period in 2011. The company’s payments amounted to 100.3 m RUB over this period, a lot more than registered in the first six months of 2011. The considerable growth is explained by our obligations to pay compensations to the aggrieved clients of Lanta-Tour Voyage. As of August 30, Ingosstrakh Insurance Company compensated a total sum of 96,422,306 RUB to 5,960 Lanta-Tour Voyage tourists, following 2,634 claims.

Ingosstrkh Insurance Company also finished paying off compensations to tourists of the bankrupt Kompaniya Luzhniki Travel LLC. Ingosstrakh Insurance Company started payments on September 8, 2011. Over this period, the insurer paid a total of 20,775,405.30 RUB, following 83 claims from 200 clients.

The enactment of the bill that increased financial responsibility of tour operators, so widely discussed among insurers and tour operators, has become an important event of the first six months of 2012. Dmitry Melekhin, Head of the Liability Insurance Department within Ingosstrakh Insurance Company: “The law was passed in a rush after Lanta-Tour Voyage had gone bankrupt and it is, in fact, crude and inefficient. It doesn’t take into account the real capacity of the Russian insurance market regarding this type of insurance. Unfortunately, the insurers’ community suggestion to create, among other things, a reinsurance pull wasn’t taken into consideration. In practice, only a few tour operators have increased their financial liability. Other players of the sector have done their best to optimize insurance costs as the wording of the new bill allowed for ambiguity in so far as the definition of funds’ size gained after selling a tourist product. All we can do is sit and wait for some large tourist operator to fail, which, in its turn, will evidently lead to a new review of the law in this field and push us to choose a new functional model of insurance algorithms. Particularly, we can follow the model adopted in Europe, where each trip voucher is insured. In this case, every tourist will receive a full compensation of all expenses, not a proportional one, which we have in Russia today. This model will help an insurer assess risks and fix an adequate price of insurance. No doubt, this model has certain difficulties when being applied practically. There are questions concerning the assessment and cumulation of risks, but in any case it provides maximum protection for all tourists.”