STATE-OWNED VEHICLES AVOID RUSSIAN MOTOR LAW UNTIL 2005

Russia’s recently passed compulsory insurance bill is to come into force eighteen months later for drivers of state-owned vehicles, the country’s parliament has announced. From July 1 next year private car owners will be required to buy third-party motor cover at rates ranging from $30 for drivers outside Moscow to almost $80 for those registered inside the capital’s city limits. However, drivers of state-owned vehicles have been given until the beginning of 2004 to take out the cover, since the state has yet to finalise its insurance tariffs for government-registered vehicles. Deputy finance minister Mikhail Motorin claimed this was because the ministry’s department of insurance supervision had yet to agree a formula to calculate such rates. The delay has been criticised by locally based insurers and parliamentary members, with Alfa Strakhovanie director-general Vladimir Skvortsov arguing that the two-paced introduction of the new law would hinder its effective implementation. An estimated 2m government vehicles are thought to be affected by the delay, out of 33m registered vehicles in Russia. Under the terms of the insurance bill, tariffs are meant to be fixed by the government twice-yearly, rather than by the country’s finance ministry, which has until now regulated the loss-making sector through the department of insurance supervision. When it comes into force next July, local insurers will be expected to administer the scheme via a self-regulating association.