Automobile insurers will face hard times

In accordance with the analytical agency �AUTOSTAT� nowadays every fifth car on-the-road in Russia is insured through �KASKO�. At the moment about 6-7 million cars of the total car park which consists of 30 million units are insured against car theft and damage. Meanwhile the main share (75-80 percent) of cars which are insured through �KASKO� falls on transport produced during the last three years.
Sergey Tselikov, the director of the analytical agency �AUTOSTAT� thinks that the main �locomotive engine� of growth of the car insurance market for last years has been auto credit. Almost all 100 percent of credited cars are being insured and their share before the beginning of the financial crisis was gradually growing and has reached 50 percent of the total market volume. Analysts of the �AUTOSTAT� estimated the market volume of auto KASKO for 2008 in the amount of 150 billion rubles but nowadays it may decrease 8-10 percent below the forecasted ones. However in comparison with 2007 the growth will be rather high, about 25-30 percent. Moreover the market of OSAGO is almost twice as little than KASKO which is estimated by experts in 2008 in the amount of 75-80 billion rubles.
But the prospects of the market of car insurance are still vague. Many banks ceased to give credits because of the financial problems, other ones have raised interest rates. In the nearest future this situation will be reflected on sales statistics of new cars and in the first turn the cars bought on credit will suffer. But they were the major �locomotive engine� for the auto market as well as for auto insurance market. According to Sergey Tselikov next year the stagnation of this market is expected at the best and at the worst it will collapse. But the conditions for consumers may be reviewed to the good. New cars� consumers may see decline of insurance rates and special offers.