OREANDA-NEWS. January 26, 2010. An online conference dedicated to the draft law on Compulsory Insurance of Third-Party Liability for Damage Inflicted in the Course of Dangerous Facilities Operation has been held on the website of the Oil and Gas News Agency. During the three days of the conference visitors to the web portal were able to ask any questions they had to the panel of experts consisting of Nikolay Galushin, Deputy Director General of open joint-stock insurance company Ingosstrakh, and Tatyana Lavrova, head of the liability insurance department at OJSIC Ingosstrakh.

The majority of questions that the experts received came from people employed at oil and gas and power generating enterprises, as well as from journalists, and concerned the principle upon which this Law will function if it is adopted, possible limits on insurance risks, insurance rates, as well as various aspects related to expert assessment of dangerous facilities.

In his answers to questions coming from the audience Nikolay Galushin emphasized that the Law provides not only for insurance and payment of insurance indemnities, but also for permanent audit of dangerous facilities, monitoring of their condition and maintenance of relevant records. Conclusion of agreement shall be essentially preceded by in-depth study of the risk quality and calculation of the required insured amount. The maximum insured amount will be 6,5 billion rubles. This maximum amount requires re-insurance which is еxpected to be fully covered by the Russian reinsurance market. Preliminary a reinsurance capacity has been formed for providing such reinsurance, making payment of even larger insurance coverage amount possible without reservations.

In his answer about facilities whose safety levels do not meet the adopted safety standards Nikolay Galushin specifically emphasized the role of risk assessment. Such facilities should, in his opinion, be either brought up-to-date, or, else, closed down. “Within this structure the insurance agreement in itself will be of secondary importance, the paramount importance will be placed on risk assessment which shall be carried out by qualified independent experts with no relation to either owners of the facility, nor to the insurance company. The verdict should be with them”, - added Mr. Galushin.

Speaking of the possible tariffs, Tatyana Lavrova stressed that, in the absence of any reliable statistic, the only option is to seek a compromise solution and to further adjust the rates depending on the actual losses. If the losses suffered by third parties as a result of accidents and emergency breakdowns are relatively moderate, the rates shall also be small. The insurers’ interest lies in an adequate coverage amount and economically justified rates.

Ingosstrakh takes an active part in the work on the draft law through the involvement of the profile All-Russia Union of Insurers and Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs working groups. The company has been offering third-party liability insurance of dangerous facilities in operation since 1997 and has to date accumulated vast experience in this sector of business.