Bonus‑Malus System for Civil Liability Insurance Enters Into Force

The new risk assessment framework for the mandatory Civil Liability insurance enters into force after more than a decade of debate and two failed attempts. On August 25, amendments to Regulation No. 49 on mandatory insurance and Regulation No. 54 on the registers of the Guarantee Fund were published, announced the Financial Supervision Commission.

The changes establish a normative framework through which insurers will calculate the premium according to the drivers' claim history over the last five years. The claim history will be centrally authenticated by the Guarantee Fund, regardless of which insurer the policy was contracted with.

The aim is for companies to have full information about past claims and to determine the price of the policy more realistically. Drivers with a better history will receive a lower premium, while those with more or larger claims will pay a higher price. The rating policy will be part of each insurer's risk management system and must be published on its website.

Insurers will record all claims in real time in the Guarantee Fund register. Leading data and the amount of paid compensation will be available to them, and documents for certification will not be required in paper form if the necessary information is available administratively.

The system provides for automatic electronic access to the claim history for the last five years. The damages will follow the actual user of the vehicle under certain conditions, including transfers between related persons or in the case of leased vehicles.

The possibilities for obtaining a centralized certificate of insurance claims from the Guarantee Fund will be available to drivers, owners, and persons taking out the insurance. The document will contain a QR code for electronic verification and can be requested on-site or electronically with a qualified electronic signature or the e-signature of the Bulgarian NRA (NAP).

Insurers offering Civil Liability and Comprehensive Insurance will have access to data from the road accident register. This includes information about the responsible party, possible contributory fault, the driving license, and photographs when available. Access to personal data will be allowed only upon a specific request related to an already asserted claim.

The changes also provide for free access to part of the Guarantee Fund's public registers and a backup mechanism for policy issuance in the event of technical system failure. In such cases, the Financial Supervision Commission may authorize companies to issue policies and price offers through their own information systems temporarily.

The goal of the new regulation is for the price of Civil Liability to reflect the individual risk more objectively and the real claims history, rather than being determined without centralized information about the behavior of a particular driver.

Source: news.bg