EU agrees draft update to car insurance directive
Car crash
(BRUSSELS) - The EU Parliament and Council reached a provisional agreement Wednesday on motor insurance rules providing more protection, transparency and smoother cooperation throughout the EU.
The amended rules - which enable EU residents to travel anywhere in the EU without the need to buy additional insurance. - will better protect injured people when accidents occur in any EU member state, including domestic victims of an accident caused by a driver from another EU country. Victims of accidents will also be protected if a liable party's insurance company goes bankrupt, as the new rules require national compensation bodies to meet costs arising from such cases.
The rules harmonise minimum amounts of cover across the EU:
- for personal injuries: €6 070 000 per accident or EUR 1,220,000 per injured party;
- for damages to property: €1 220 000 per accident.
To tackle uninsured driving, the amended directive allows cross-border insurance checks on vehicles. However, such checks should be non-discriminatory as part of regular checks, and not require the vehicle to be stopped.
The agreement introduces mandatory use of a Single Claims History Statement and obligations to inform citizens how they can apply for compensation. Additionally, insurance providers will have to treat all EU citizens equally by accepting claims-history statements from another member state as equal to a domestic statement and apply any discounts based on that (such as 'bonus-malus' discounts).
Citizens will be able to compare prices, tariffs and coverage offered by different providers more easily thanks to new free-of-charge and independent price comparison tools.
To avoid overregulation, the amended rules allow non-road vehicles (such as garden tractors, mobility scooters, toy cars) to be excluded as well as excluding electric bicycles from insurance obligations. Vehicles intended exclusively for motorsports are also excluded.
The deal will now have to be formally approved by Parliament and Council. Once approved, the directive will enter into force 20 days after its publication in the EU Official Journal. The new rules will start to apply 24 months after the entry into force.
Further information, European Parliament