Two bills aimed at ending what sponsors call profiteering against elderly drivers will go to a parliamentary vote in January, affecting approximately 74,000 motorists aged 70 and over in Cyprus.
MP Alexandra Attalidou prepared the legislation, which the Human Rights Committee will submit to parliament’s plenary session.
The bills have repeatedly come before parliament, with insurance companies expressing opposition and warning that changes to premiums for the elderly would trigger increases for the rest of the population.
The first bill prohibits insurance companies from direct or indirect discrimination against persons aged 70 and over when concluding, renewing or pricing insurance contracts.
Insurers cannot use age as the sole or exclusive criterion for entering into contracts or imposing unfavourable terms.
Premium differentiation for those over 70 would only be permitted if based on evidence demonstrating the risk involved. Violations would carry fines of up to €100,000.
The second bill requires insurers to provide adequate and documented written justification to any person they refuse to insure. The Insurance Commissioner could impose administrative fines of up to €3,500 for non-compliance.
The Law Office and the Cyprus Bar Association do not consider age a factor justifying premium increases, a position held in the majority of foreign countries. Cyprus, the Netherlands and Luxembourg are the only exceptions, according to the bills.
The Bar Association expressed only one concern: that there should be no discrimination against other age groups. The Law Office highlighted that “there is an issue of adverse discrimination in premium increase with age as the sole criterion”.
The Ombudsman’s office said the legislation needs to regulate the gap so that case-by-case assessment becomes binding.
The Insurance Commissioner at the Finance Ministry disagreed with taking on the oversight role outlined in the bills. The supervisor is not a lawyer or judge to resolve private disputes, officials stressed, adding they examine matters only from a supervisory perspective.
“If insurance companies go bankrupt, we’ll have a serious problem,” officials said, noting the Commissioner’s purpose is to ensure companies don’t go bankrupt and remain solvent.
Andreas Athanasiadis, general director of the Insurance Companies Association, said of the approximately 74,000 drivers over 70, only 3,000 faced refusal to insure from a company and ended up in the Consortium after three rejections. That’s one in 29, he noted.
Athanasiadis said legislation cannot force a company to accept every client, comparing it to how a lawyer is not obliged to accept every citizen. He repeated concerns that if premiums are reduced for the elderly, they will increase for others.
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