Penalties to be paid by insurers for breaching RCA insurance contracts stand at 0.2% (per day) of the value of damages owed to the policyholder, said CSA.
The reason behind CSA Council’s decision to amend RCA regulations was the number of complaints it received regarding the payment of damage claims on the mandatory car insurance segment, said CSA president Constantin Buzoianu.
The bonus-malus system will also apply to legal entities for RCA policies issued starting January 1, 2012.
According to the press release, the new norms were approved by the Council in a meeting held on November 29.
One of the newly approved measures states that authorization to sell RCA policies is valid for an indefinite period, which means insurers must no longer file paperwork every year to get authorization, but they must observe requirements.
Under the new regulations, RCA insurers will pay damages if they failed to inform policyholders, within at most three months from approving claim procedures, about their damage claims being rejected and the reasons why they were not approved.
The interval in which insurers must inform policyholders about their plan to run investigations was reduced from ten to five workdays.
If costs to repair a damaged car are likely to exceed the value of the respective car, the insurer must notify the car owner within ten days about the maximum value of damages that can be paid.
According to CSA, starting 2012, for material damages resulted from an accident, regardless of the number of people involved, the damage claim cap will be the equivalent in lei of EUR1 million (from EUR750,000 this year), computed using the exchange rate announced by the central bank on the day the accident took place.
For injury and death, regardless of the number of people involved, the damage claim limit will be EUR5 million (from EUR3.5 million in 2011).
The new norms will enter effect after they are published in the Official Journal.