The choice of an insurance company should be taken with great responsibility, because making the wrong decision is fraught with loss of money and lengthy litigation. If you inadvertently injured someone else’s property, broke a car or ended up in a hospital, the insurer will provide you with immediate financial assistance. How to choose an insurance company in order to feel a reliable shoulder of financial support at a difficult moment?
The main selection criteria for SK
Large insurance corporations are usually universal and deal with all types of insurance, including in such difficult areas as retro insurance in construction or protection of financial risks. Smaller insurers usually specialize in one or more fields of activity. They compensate for a narrower specialization with more attractive conditions for concluding an insurance contract. How to choose the right insurance company without relying on rumors and not taking into account "tidbits" of commercial offers?
The main parameter of choice in the analysis of the insurance company is reliability. This refers not only to customer reviews that can be created artificially (purchased). The brand’s fame and very specific financial indicators, which we will discuss below, are taken into account.
Financial sources
How to choose an insurance company if the proposals of large insurers do not suit you for a number of reasons? The first step is to rely on financial and legal information that can be found in open sources.
If the insurer is small and not very well-known, it is advisable to check first if it has a license permitting insurance activities. In Russia, such a register is available on the Bank of Russia website. There is also information about where the company’s office is located. If the insurer does not have branches in the Russian Federation and indicates the address of his company in the near or far abroad, you should find out if he has permission to work in Russia. The right to choose an insurance company is granted to everyone, but “native” companies or those who are accredited to work in our territory should be preferred. You should also carefully choose companies that have recently appeared in the insurance market. According to statistics, stability in the insurance business is achieved only after ten years of work in this market.
Insurer Reliability Assessment
Rating indicators in the general case do not guarantee the stability of this insurer, but they should still be equal. All financial companies in whose portfolio there is insurance activity can belong to four reliability classes. Here “A” is the most reliable indicator, class “E” means license revocation and the highest risk group. Group “A” has additional designations that reveal the reliability of the company: “high level” means a stable level of trust in the company of potential customers and investors, “exceptionally high” means the absolute level of trust in the company.
Reliability indicators also provide an opportunity to assess the insurer's chances of strengthening their credit rating.
Features of company ratings
To draw your own opinion, according to the rating of the company, you should know:
- Reliability assessment is an expensive procedure, only some rating agencies with an impeccable reputation can engage in such activities. If the company does not have a rating, this does not mean that this insurer is unreliable.Perhaps the management of the insurer simply did not consider it necessary at this stage to evaluate the rating of its own insurance organization.
- For a more accurate assessment, you should also read reviews about this insurer. They can be found on various otzoviks, where tips are published on how to choose an insurance company. Reviews are far from always objective: positive reviews can be bought, negative reviews can also be bought - but by competitors. Each review should be analyzed a little: a lot of common phrases (the company is good, the company is bad) suggests that you should not listen to such reviews. Pay attention to a specific assessment of certain actions: quick paperwork, arrival of a tow truck to the place of an accident, etc.
- When evaluating a company by rating, one should take results for a long period. So you can evaluate the dynamics of growth (decline) of the insurer.
The parameters of financial stability
How to choose an insurance company, can tell reports on the financial activities of the organization. Even those who do not have an economic education can draw conclusions based on financial indicators. Let's consider in more detail how to choose an insurance company based on a financial report.
- Registered capital. By law, it should be at least 240 million rubles for those companies that have included life insurance in their portfolio. For general insurance services, the fund should be 12 million rubles or more.
- Company assets. This includes the funds of the enterprise, which can be profitable. These are bank accounts, real estate investments, property, various material values. If in the dynamics of financial statements there is a tendency to growth of such assets, then this indicates an increase in the reliability of the insurer.
- Not all assets are equally reliable. Particular attention should be paid to the share in the assets of securities of various companies. If this share exceeds 5-7%, this indicates that the company is highly dependent on the growth of stock quotes of securities, and in the event of a fall in shares it will no longer be able to fulfill its obligations.
- Insurance portfolio. This figure shows the amount of insurance contracts concluded and accepted for execution. The amount of the insurance portfolio should be adequate to the assets of the company and its authorized capital.
- Payments and fees. The percentage of payments will tell you which insurance company to choose. If the company is in no hurry to pay its obligations, this indicates that in the event of an insured event it will not be easy to receive a reimbursement. If the payout percentage is too high, the company risks losing its assets in the very near future. The optimal percentage of payments to insurance premiums is up to half the value of assets.
If you have decided on the general choice of the insurance company, let's decide what to look for when choosing an insurance company for the most popular insurance packages.
What to consider when choosing an insurer for compulsory medical insurance
How to choose a compulsory health insurance company? Compulsory medical insurance is one of the most popular types of insurance. The policy of compulsory medical insurance is required for every resident of our country. To apply for a policy, it is not at all necessary to contact the insurance company directly. The insurers transferred part of their powers to special bodies - territorial compulsory health insurance bodies. Thanks to such organizations in the Russian Federation, you can get preferential or free medical care. And before you think about how to choose a compulsory health insurance company, you should contact an insurance medical organization, which is the intermediary between the insured person and the insurer.
MHI Bodies: Key Differences
When choosing a body for the provision of compulsory medical insurance, one should not look for various bonuses and discounts in their offers - tariffs for compulsory medical insurance are set by the state.But there are some differences in organizations providing compulsory health insurance policies, and you should be aware of them.
- Companies offering CHI may be regional and federal. The former operate only within one region. The action of the second applies to the entire territory of the Russian Federation. Therefore, if you are at a loss to determine which insurance company to choose for compulsory medical insurance, consider whether you will leave your region this year.
- The larger the insurance organization, the more opportunities it has to attract serious specialists to protect citizens.
- Information provided by a territorial company about a particular insurer can be verified in open sources.
If you do not like the provision of services from a specific insurer, you can change it. But this procedure can be performed only once a year.
CTP and Single Window
Now let's figure out how to choose an insurance company for OSAGO. First of all, it should be remembered that this type of insurance is also charged by the state. But it has various incentive systems for conscientious drivers. In regions where the purchase of an insurance policy is limited to several offers, the service can be issued through the Single Window portal. In this case, the question of which insurance company to choose for compulsory motor third-party liability insurance is not worth it: with the help of a computer, the insurance company is automatically determined using the auto number.
Self-selection of CTP
For those who are going to choose insurance themselves, there are minimum selection criteria:
- permission from the Central Bank for insurance to service the CTP package;
- quality of insurance claims settlement;
- the number of customer complaints about the company’s service;
- level of payments for this type of insurance.
In order not to think about how to choose an insurance company for compulsory motor third-party liability insurance every year, look at the work programs of this organization with your clients: how the bonus-malus system works for exemplary drivers, and what discounts are provided for accident-free driving experience. Perhaps for regular customers attractive compulsory insurance packages are provided.
Due to the fact that at present monetary compensation for compulsory motor liability insurance is replaced by the possibility of free restoration of a car, you should limit your choice to those insurance companies that offer to repair the vehicle at a proven service station. Each insurance company has a list of companies with which auto repair contracts are concluded.
What to consider when choosing a CASCO insurer
If you have already decided which insurance company to choose for compulsory motor third-party liability insurance, it will not be out of place to take an interest in CASCO voluntary insurance packages.
Unlike a motor citizen, the CASCO policy will help to repair a car, regardless of how, and through whose fault it was damaged. At the same time, the cost of the policy varies widely enough.
Important factors
Many companies have developed online calculators to calculate the cost of the CASCO policy, taking into account the type of vehicle, driving experience and region of residence. The total amount will also depend on how many times you have signed a CASCO contract in this insurance company.
Of course, you decide which insurance company to choose for yourself, but before applying for a policy, it will not be out of place to pay attention to the following:
- Is wear taken into account? Is the replacement of spare parts prescribed in the contract? Please note that according to statistics, it is not advisable to insure by CASCO a car older than 10 years.
- Can I pay in installments? And from what date in this case the policy validity period will be calculated.
- Is there a condition for compensation of funds from: theft, actions of third parties, damage in an accident, in case of force majeure circumstances, etc.
Asking questions
Read the contract carefully and do not hesitate to ask the insurance representative about the most common situations:
- how are compensations for scratches on cars received during parking;
- whether the cost of the wheels will be compensated if they were removed in an unguarded parking lot;
- Does the insurance include towing services not only to the garage, but also to the service center;
- if a natural reimbursement (repair) of the car is selected, where it will occur;
- what is the cost of maximum compensation in the event of an irretrievable loss of the car, etc.
Summarizing
There can be many similar questions, and it depends on each of them how much time and money it will take to repair your car in case of sudden damage. So that the answers to these questions are satisfactory, ask them not to intermediaries, but to direct representatives of the insurance company.
Take an interest in packages of insurance programs, many of them, VHI + CTP, for example, will be very useful for inexperienced drivers. And remember, you and your car have only one friend - you yourself. Take care of yourself in advance so as not to be left without a car or health.