Proposition 50K1079

Projet de loi modifiant la loi du 21 novembre 1989 relative à l'assurance obligatoire de la responsabilité civile en matière de véhicules automoteurs et modifiant les articles 29 et 31 de la loi du 25 juin 1992 sur le contrat d'assurance terrestre.

General information ¶

Submitted by

The Senate

Submission date

May 10, 2000

Official page

Visit

Status

Adopted

Requirement

Simple

Subjects

motor vehicle insurance civil liability compulsory insurance

Voting ¶

Voted to adopt

Groen Ecolo LE PS | SP Open Vld MR

Abstained from voting

CD&V N-VA FN VB

Party dissidents ¶

• Alfons Borginon (Open Vld) abstained from voting.

Contact form ¶

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Discussion ¶

March 7, 2002 | Plenary session (Chamber of representatives)

Full source

I refer to the written report.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Mr. Colleagues, I would like to further extend the draft law and give it again a place in the problem of car insurance today.

Automotive insurance is in full evolution. Prices for car insurance are rising sharply, up to 15%. More than 20 insurance companies have asked the Minister of Economic Affairs for a price increase for the automotive policy and most have received them in the meantime. The profitability of car insurance companies is under pressure, among other things due to the murderous competition. There is the bonus-malus system that is abolished under the impulse of the European Commission. In addition, there is the segmentation, which causes the premium of young and old people to rise and in fact excludes whole groups in society from a yet mandatory insurance.

Young people and also some elderly people did not get a policy or pay very high surcharges; one easily pays 1000 euros for a very modest car. Elderly and young people are excluded not because they have caused accidents, but because they are young or because they are old.

Consequently, the whole liberalization, the liberalization of the insurance market, under the impetus of the European Commission, has had a number of negative effects in addition to positive effects. The uninsured driving and the incorrect driving were therefore promoted, among other things. Moreover, the release by the Belgian government has not been sufficiently updated and framed in order to avoid the negative consequences.

I would like to highlight our criticism of this bill.

In fact, the right to a car insurance, announced with a lot of thunder, must be very strongly relativized. It is estimated that the scheme developed by the government is useful for approximately 25 000 drivers. But recently, the problem was signaled by the Federation of Insurance Intermediaries. They speak of 100,000 uninsured vehicles and 500,000 incorrect or false insured vehicles.

According to estimates, both from insurers and the insurance control service, this bill will cover approximately 25,000 drivers. The rest fall outside the provisions of this draft law. One will only be able to invoke the right to a car insurance if one is either refused three times, or would have to pay five times more than someone for the same vehicle, who pays the minimum premium. This means that one must already be a serious breaker, if one wants to qualify for the right to insurance.

To clarify, I will give an example. For a small Ford Fiesta, you pay a minimum premium of 260 euros per year or 300 euros per year including tax.

If one applies the factor 5 to this, this rises to as much as 1,180 euros without taxes or 1,500 euros with taxes, about 60,000 francs. The younger concerned may enter the tariff office only if the premium is higher than 60,000 francs. This threshold is too high. This is the right to harvest especially for young people and the elderly. Not because of their injury past or because they have already caused accidents, young drivers and older drivers are excluded from a car insurance but because of their age. Apparently, all young and all older drivers together as a group have a greater damage burden than the average. The individual younger or elderly who makes an insurance for the first time is the dupe of this. Their

The surplus premium that young and older people have to pay only because of the age factor sometimes reaches up to 100% of the premium that an average insurer has to pay. A 21-year-old sometimes pays twice as much as a 30-year-old, just because of his age. I give an example. I have examined the premiums of a particular insurance company. A 30-year-old man who lives in a rural municipality pays 500 euros for a Ford Fiesta. A 21-year-old man in the same rural municipality, at the same company and for the same Ford Fiesta pays 850 euros. Just because of the age factor, the latter pays 50% more. What happens then? The problem is bypassed. Someone else, a parent, takes the insurance. In many cases, insurance consultants themselves suggest this backdoor. This will only become a problem in the event of a damage. The insurance company may consider that agreement to be void. In addition, the insurer has a claim right that is not linked to any financial limit.

Mr. Minister, the present draft law does not provide any solution to the problem of insurance for the elderly and young people. The threshold for entering the tariff agency is, after all, far too high.

A premium for a younger who increases from 40,000 francs to 60,000 francs is unpaid. People are scared of such high amounts. And yet almost every family has a younger person who has to pay these amounts for a car insurance. The young people involved are often only at work or are still students. They are faced with this ⁇ high insurance.

For the CD&V, car insurance is a basic right that must be accessible to everyone at a reasonable price, including young and old people. We believe that the age factor should only play a 25% role in determining rates for young and old people. We submitted our proposal to the committee through an amendment. For the CD&V, the premium for a younger person shall not exceed the basic premium increased by 25%. Mr. Minister, you answered that this was not in accordance with European legislation.

We may have different opinions on this, but well, I have accepted what you said, in particular that such a arrangement is contrary to the provisions of the European Commission. We made a survey and we were told that in order to resolve the problem, we had to make sure it did not become an insurance-technical text and that we had to propose it as a solution to a social problem. The European Commission accepts that a country recognizes a social problem and takes action against it.

Mr. Minister, we have submitted two new amendments that are in accordance with the provisions of the European Union. Our starting point is the problem of higher insurance premiums for young and old people, which is socially irresponsible. Therefore, we propose to introduce in legislation a maximum increase of 25% applied to the parameter age. Insurers who do not wish to contract the young and the elderly on that condition must refer the persons concerned to the tariff agency. There, those young and elderly should be able to sign a policy, where the parameter age for up to 25% plays a role in the tariff determination. The financing of the tariff agency we see is done through an advance reduction on the existing tax or insurance policies. The policies of young and old people are subsidised, if you wish.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to introduce the tax that weighs on a policy of civil liability car. This tax in Belgium is one of the highest in Europe; we pay 27.1% tax on such a policy. In France it is even higher. On average, this is around 15%. The Belgian tax is a proportional tax. So the higher the premium—young and old pay a higher premium—the more tax young and old pay. That proportional tax consists of a tax tax of 9.25%, a tax in favour of the Riziv of 10%, a tax in favour of the Fund for the Disabled of 7.5% and a tax in favour of the Red Cross of 0.35%.

We target the tax of 9.25%, which is directly intended for the government. The fact that the tax is proportionate implies that individuals who have a expensive insurance, for example young people, also pay relatively more tax. The government's income will increase anyway given the increases of the car policies allowed by you by 15%, Mr. Minister. The government will see its revenue increase due to the increase in car premiums. Well, we think that part of that increased tax paid should be allocated and awarded to young and old people who have to pay an excessive premium because of their age.

We believe that there are sufficient reasons to reorient and dynamize the tax tax on the civil liability policy. Therefore, we propose to partially use the tax tax to tighten a tariff agency that can grant a subsidy to young and old people for the payment of their policy. In doing so, we want to partially restore the solidarity between the insured and also reduce the wild segmentation.

Mr. Speaker, allow me to link to Mrs. Lalieux’s bill that is currently under discussion in the Committee on Economic Affairs. Ms. Lalieux believes that everyone has the right to basic banking services.

In the committee we have encrypted the cost price of that basic banking operation that Mrs. Lalieux proposes to offer free of charge. The cost is 15 euros or 600 Belgian francs. Mrs. Lalieux’s bill, which apparently enjoys your support, stipulates that everyone receives such a free banking transaction of 600 francs.

If a free banking transaction is possible, I wonder if the right to a car insurance is not also somehow solidified and made accessible to young and old people.

My argument does not apply to those who have already caused accidents. I repeat this again. Those broken-makers, by the way, come into your bill. Anyone who is rejected on the basis of accidents by three insurance companies can submit an application to the tariff agency. However, young people or older people who have to pay too high premiums cannot go to the tariff agency because that threshold is too high. The Social Democrats, the Socialists and the Greens are apparently in favour of free banking, but do not show solidarity with young people and the elderly for car insurance.

We therefore submit our amendments again. We would like to ask the majority to look at our amendments with an open mind and not reject them immediately because they come from the opposition. Per ⁇ we should eventually go to a guaranteed right to a car insurance for young and old people at a reasonable price.

That was my plea. Our amendments are intended to transform what we defend into legislative texts.

I have already received your amendments. You have already defended them in your plea.

This bill has two important objectives for us. Identify the non-insured and force all drivers to compulsory civil liability insurance, since we know that in reality many drivers are not insured and that it is then the community that must bear the costs when the latter cause accidents.

Nevertheless, this project could only stand the way if arrangements were put in place so that everyone could access this civil liability insurance. Therefore, measures had to be taken. They have already been introduced in the Senate and we have discussed them in a committee.

It is true that this project does not respond to all the criticisms that we can formulate against insurance companies. One area is not addressed by this project, namely how to determine the amount of premiums, based on what criteria? Insurance companies have put in place a data collection system to establish the criteria, the famous DATASSUR registry to which a legal framework must be given. I think we can address this issue in parallel with this project. Currently, the urgency was to respect and promote payment and therefore insurance coverage.

We obviously endorse the installation of this pricing office and how it will be able to fix prices and intervene. This bill prohibits insurance companies from terminating the civil liability contract through the termination of another branch of coverage. It was also a way often used by insurance companies to exclude their customers. This is the problem that we want to answer.

This plan does not allow insurance companies to terminate the contract before three months after notification. If I speak of this, it is because we are currently being arrested by consumer advocacy associations. Non-compliance with the deadline is permitted when the insurance company makes a complaint for fraud, false testimony or voluntary fire. In this context, privacy protection may be compromised as the driver may be presumed guilty from the outset. However, we believe that this is a reasonable formula, since insurance companies cannot afford to file a complaint without having reasonable evidence. I therefore invite the minister to make an assessment within a rather close time, a year ⁇ , to try to analyze what these terminations and complaints were. Have these complaints been retained or withdrawn? Was there any action or no action on the part of the insurance companies?

I come back to Mrs. Creyf’s remarks on the too high premiums demanded for new and young drivers as well as for older drivers. I opposed this amendment in the committee, although I fully agree with the analysis. For me, these insurance premiums are actually too high. However, in our opinion, this problem cannot be solved with a spoonful of a pot. It seems to us that measures need to be taken in a complementary way and in a different area than that of insurance. I would not like a young man to have access to insurance too easily and that the fact that he is a young driver is no longer taken into account. It is in this category that we find the largest number of car accidents victims. If such a measure would be adopted, it would need to be coupled with the changes now planned, for example concerning the issuance of the driver’s license, so that this population is no longer among the most affected and therefore no longer the most expensive for insurance.

Similarly, it will need to be possible to introduce, for the elderly, a system for verifying their ability to drive. It can then be imagined to regulate the price of insurance so that these users are not penalized compared to others.

I know that measures regarding the license are planned in the short term. This will be an opportunity to reopen the debate.

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Minister, Colleagues, the VLD fully supports this bill that aims to address the problem of uninsured vehicles from two different angles.

On the one hand, it is intended to track uninsured vehicles through the Common Guarantee Fund, so that the drivers of those vehicles can be treated strictly. On the other hand, the right to insurance is introduced through a tariff agency. This is a balanced approach, which will reduce the number of uninsured vehicles to a minimum.

However, this design did not come without a blow or a blow. At the beginning of this legislature, colleague Pierre Lano and I have already addressed this issue. Indeed, the Common Motor Warranty Fund has a database for the detection of uninsured vehicles. Until now, however, this database was not allowed to be used because the legal basis for this was still lacking. In the Senate, colleague Philippe Monfils submitted a bill to remedy this evil. However, Mr. Monfils’s proposal unilaterally regulated the regressive approach, which had its reasons. This is a problem that seems to be increasing in size. Currently, around 100,000 uninsured vehicles are circulating around, which accounts for about 2% of the fleet. These vehicles are involved in approximately 7,500 accidents per year. The damage burden must be paid by the 98% still insured drivers. Riding around a non-insured vehicle is therefore unacceptable and unfair to us and therefore needs to be addressed.

At the same time, we must recognize that the causes lie somewhat deeper. A few years ago, the professional association for insurance brokers pointed out some important facts.

There are insurance companies that no longer want to accept a package insured. Some companies held off the boat and accepted only drivers with a bonus-malus grade 7. Others refused drivers with more than two collisions. Hence the legitimate proposal of the Minister to address these causes through a tariff agency. In addition to the insurance obligation, there is also the right to insurance. Insured persons have the right to access the compulsory insurance through an affordable premium. In any case, it is desirable that everyone who puts a vehicle into circulation pays its premium. It is also important that persons who continue to drive around uninsured are treated strictly. As I said, our group supports this proposal. However, I would like to insist that the tariff agency should quickly establish the necessary criteria for assessing the various cases. The Government must be able to exercise the necessary control so that the tariff agency can effectively operate as the legislator has desired.

Mr. Speaker, I have already explained on several occasions in the committee that the draft begins with a proposal aimed at combating non-insurance. But we realized that we would not solve this problem by purely repressive measures. Why Why ? Because non-insurance is largely due to the fact that people do not access insurance. This is what led us to imagine a pricing system. As has been said, if, after consulting three insurance agencies, the applicant considers the prices too high or has been denied access to the insurance, he can address a pricing office. This is the reason for this pricing office.

This project is the subject of amendments. I think of the amendment submitted by Mrs Creyf in relation to the youth. This amendment aims to solve the problem of young drivers. However, it involves a risk. The tariff agency could be overwhelmed with applications because the insurers will in fact reject the young people. The second amendment shows strong similarities with state aid for the benefit of insurance companies. I am talking about the original formula. I am not sure that the European Commission is not looking at such a thing. I am convinced that Mrs Creyf’s first proposal is contrary to European legislation. I refer to the bonus-malus system that was challenged by the European Commission. Mrs. Creyf now comes up with a new approach, a new formula. This includes fiscal provisions. It is a little pity that we cannot examine in the serenity a proposition or an amendment, which is the case here, Mr. President.

We have the choice. Either we decide to return to the committee to examine Mrs. Creyf’s proposal or we consider that the work has been done, that all cases have been examined and that we have well measured the scope of the text that will be submitted to vote soon.

As a correction to Mrs. Creyf, I would like to tell her that the remarks she made today are not uninteresting. However, some aspects that she raised are more the responsibility of the Minister of Finance than the Minister of Economic Affairs. I am referring to the majority and I would like them to give me their feelings in this regard.

Mr. Minister, allow me to interrupt you for a moment. If you think it is worth sending the proposal back to the committee, do so.

I want to play the game. I want to be fair to Mrs. Creyf, but also to my majority partners. I repeat that I am not opposed to a referral of this draft to the committee, but, in advance, I propose to consult the majority.

Mrs. De Meyer, what do you think of the Minister’s proposal?

Mr. Speaker, if the Minister can agree, I will request the return to the committee.

Then I will send this bill back to the committee so that you can look at Mrs. Creyf’s comments again.

I refer to the written report.