Astra has mediated over 50% of the mandatory home insurance policies

Since July 15th, Astra has mediated over 33,000 mandatory home insurance policies, consisting of approx. 50% of the total number of contracts issued by the Disaster Insurance Pool (PAID), Radu Mustăţea, Astra president, declared on Tuesday.

"The numbers are not encouraging and I believe the evolution in sales indicates that home owners are still considering mandatory home insurance to be a new charge that the state burdens them with. Furthermore, numerous owners have understood that they will pay fines for not having concluded a policy after January 15th, 2011, however, they did not understand that a potential flood, earthquake or land slide may also take place prior to this term", Mustăţea said, attending a specialized event.

This is one of the 13 shareholders of PAID, an insurance company established in September 2009.

Together with Clal România and Groupama Asigurări, Astra holds a 15% contribution to the PAID capital. ABC Asigurări, Ardaf, Carpatica Asig, Certasig, City Insurance, Credit Europe Asigurări, Euroins (former Asitrans), Generali and Grawe România each control it, with a 5.5% contribution. The legislation binds real estate owners to conclude an insurance policy and the premium will be differentiated according to the type of home (A or B), between Euro 10 and 20. The insured value of a home is set between Euro 10,000 and 20,000.

In accordance with Law 260/2008, a type A home is a building with a support structure made of reinforced concrete, metal or wood or with external walls made of stone, burnt brick or any other materials resulted from a thermal and/or chemical treatment, and a type B home is a building with external walls made of unburnt brick or of any other materials that were not subject to thermal and/or chemical treatment.

The first mandatory home insurance policies were issued as of July 15th, and they cover the risk of earthquake, flood and land slide.

According to the PAID data, as of July 15th, owners have concluded over 75,000 policies, and the first three companies in terms of the number of concluded contracts are Astra, Generali and Groupama. Moreover, Generali has mediated approximately 19,000 policies, according to the data submitted by the company’s deputy managing director, Adrian Marin, attending the event.

Home owners are bound to conclude mandatory home insurance by January 15th, 2011. After the expiration of this term, non-compliant parties will be sanctioned by the city halls with fines set between lei 100 and 500.

Source: Mediafax

Date: 12-10-2010