How to sue an insurance company under MTPL 2021

Publication date: 03/04/2019 Number of views: 5860

Author: Ermakov Andrey Valerievich Lawyer, partner of the Legal Agency of St. Petersburg Articles written: 20

The situation when an insurance company files a lawsuit against the culprit of an accident in order to recover material damage based on the compensation paid to the injured party is becoming more and more common every year. If previously relatively little-known organizations that had close ties with collection agencies committed similar sins, today you can get a claim for subrogation or recourse from almost any insurance company. Recently, there has been increased activity on the part of the insurance company, which is trying to compensate for its losses under CASCO or OSAGO contracts by filing lawsuits against those responsible for the accident. There is a trend: if the accident occurred in 2015 or 2021 (the statute of limitations is about to expire), and the amount of paid material damage exceeds 100-120 thousand rubles, you can expect a quick summons from the court. There are many explanations for this: the unstable economic situation in the country, a sharply increased number of vehicles, competition in the market, tightening legislation in the field of insurance companies. In order to somehow preserve their assets and not become bankrupt, they are forced to resort to subrogation and recourse claims. What to do if the insurance company sues the person responsible for the accident, what is the difference between recourse and subrogation, is it possible to reduce the amount of payments for a lawsuit and how to protect your property rights? Answers to these and related questions are provided by professional lawyers in the field of insurance law and civil law.

Briefly about OSAGO

OSAGO is a policy purchased by a motorist in order to ensure the preservation of his property rights and interests. Purchasing insurance helps protect the driver from losses associated with compensation for damage caused to vehicles or the health of others as a result of an accident.

Attention! Taking out an MTPL policy is the responsibility of every driver and this is enshrined in Federal Law No. 40-FZ. If a motorist does not have insurance, he will be subject to a fine of 800 rubles.

Moreover, if the driver has not taken out a policy, this is not an obstacle to filing a claim in court if a dispute arises with the insurance company of the person responsible for the accident due to non-payment of money for the damage caused. You can purchase a car insurance policy in one of two ways:

Through personal contact with the insurance company.
Through the website of the relevant company.

The insurance company has no right to refuse to issue a policy. If a car owner is faced with a similar situation, he does not need to go to court with the insurance company. It is enough to file a complaint with the prosecutor's office, the RSA or the Central Bank.

To obtain insurance, the driver must present a passport, license, vehicle registration certificate and vehicle registration certificate. The insurance company calculates the amount of the policy independently, based on the parameters of the car, the presence of fines from the owner and legal norms.

Advice! The most popular companies issuing compulsory motor liability insurance are RESO, Rosgosstrakh and Ingostrakh.

“Legal expert” and its advantages if you need legal services in insurance disputes?

1. Narrow specialization - lawyers and attorneys in insurance disputes.

You should do the same thing when you receive a claim from an insurance company. Having a problem with your insurance?

Find a lawyer who specializes in insurance disputes. Sometimes the victim does not know that a lawyer is needed, so when searching he writes:

lawyer (insurance disputes) or insurance claims lawyer.

Providing for the most part only legal services - disputes with insurance companies, we have studied all the necessary judicial practice and know the steps of in-house insurance lawyers in advance.

Therefore, you can be sure that you have entrusted your problem to specialists who can really recover the maximum amount of compensation in your favor, as far as current legislation allows.

2. Zero costs on your part when starting to work with your business.

We cover the costs of conducting an independent examination, preparing all necessary notarial documents, postage and other related costs.

Before filing a claim in court, you need to very scrupulously observe all the necessary formalities - properly organize the examination, send all telegrams and letters on time, correctly prepare powers of attorney (these seemingly small things significantly influence the outcome of the trial).

Therefore, we took on all these worries, including payment, since fussing with payment documents would be guaranteed to deprive you of peace for several days.

In practice, the following types of expenses must be incurred before the trial begins:

on-site inspection of the car – 1000 rubles;
telegram to call the insurer’s representatives – 700 rubles;
independent examination – 6,000 rubles;
notarized power of attorney for the right to represent interests – 2000 rubles;
sending a pre-trial claim by registered mail – 300 rubles.

TOTAL: 10,000 rubles.

By contacting us for legal services to resolve an insurance dispute, you immediately save 10,000 rubles for yourself after signing the contract.

3. The insurance lawyer is fully interested in your success.

How is this confirmed? It's simple.

You pay for legal services only after you have received into your account the entire amount of compensation that we have won from the insurance company in your favor.

So, in one case, our client, an experienced motorcyclist, was injured in an accident. The culprit's insurance company paid him 10 times less than the cost of the actual repair.

Lawyers organized an examination, which calculated an adequate amount of repairs. This calculation was sent to the insurance company along with the pre-trial claim.

And 5 days after sending the claim, our motorcyclist received into his account the entire amount that the insurance company initially underpaid him.

He was so amazed (in a good way) that he personally brought our fee for the case to our office with the words “Guys, I no longer believed that justice existed!”

Reasons for disputes with insurance companies

According to statistics, the main problems that arise between the insurer and the policyholder are standard. The causes of disputes are divided into three groups:

Refusal to cover repair costs and other payments.
Reduced compensation amount.
Delaying payment deadlines.

Often the question of how to sue an insurance company arises in the following specific situations:

The insurer refuses to acknowledge the existence of an event due to which the driver must be paid a set amount (for example, if the damage to the car was not caused by an accident).
The car owner does not have a compulsory motor liability insurance policy.
The driver violated the procedure for completing procedural papers.
There is a dispute about the extent and nature of damage to vehicles or harm to the health of injured citizens.
The guilt of one of the motorists has not been proven or it is mutual.
There is no information about the second participant in the accident (for example, he left the scene of the collision).
The insurance company refuses to pay compensation for other reasons.

It is important to know! Disputes often arise due to the fact that drivers draw up a European protocol in case of an accident in the absence of traffic police officers, although this is permitted by legal norms.

In any of these cases, the motorist must follow the procedure for resolving the dispute: first, submitting a claim to the insurer, then filing a claim in court under compulsory motor liability insurance. Nowadays, winning a legal dispute with an insurance company is not so easy. This is due to the fact that due to frequent cases of fraud by car owners when concluding assignment (subrogation) agreements, insurers were given the right to choose - to cover the costs of restoration repairs or to repair the car themselves.

The insurance company paid little. How to increase your insurance payment 3 times without spending a single ruble?

A car owner whose car was damaged in an accident and awaiting insurance payment, as an injured party, must know one extremely important thing.

Insurance doesn't pay? Find out why

Is it hard to believe that the insurance company will pay so little? Then it makes sense to understand insurance disputes in more detail and make sure that such an uncompromising statement from our insurance claims lawyers is correct.

As soon as you find out why the insurance company does not pay, the second question immediately arises. If the insurance company doesn't pay, what should you do?

A professional insurance litigation lawyer will answer: you need to sue the insurance company.

Litigation with the insurance company

A lawsuit with the insurance company is the only correct option for dealing with an insurance company that does not pay.

After the court’s decision has been made and it has entered into legal force, you will no longer need to communicate with representatives of the insurer and persuade them to reconsider your insurance payment. The money that the court awarded to the insurance company in your favor can be written off without notifying the insurance company - just present to the bank the writ of execution that will be given to you in court.

Take advantage of our services:

Refusal to pay OSAGO
Court case with insurance under CASCO
Litigation with the insurance company under compulsory motor liability insurance
Litigation with the insurance company in case of an accident
Automotive lawyer services

Pre-trial claim

Drawing up a pre-trial claim is the first stage of resolving a dispute. If disagreements arise due to a reduction in the amount of compensation, refusal to pay insurance, or violation of payment deadlines, the motorist has the right to file a formal complaint with the appropriate company.

In a pre-trial claim, the driver of the vehicle expresses objections to the illegal actions of the insurer, indicates all the circumstances under which the conflict arose and demands that they be eliminated. If the insurance company does not provide a written response within the period established by law, the car owner has the right to go to court.

Pre-trial resolution of insurance disputes is a mandatory element of the parties’ proceedings. If the driver does not agree with the amount calculated by the insurer, he has the right to engage an independent appraiser to inspect the vehicle and calculate the amount of recovery from the insurance company.

When sending a claim document, a number of requirements must be met:

The claim must be made in writing.
The paper must be presented in two copies: one remains with the insurer, the other is returned to the applicant with a receipt stamp.
The document must contain the necessary information.

The text of the claim must include the following information:

first name, last name, patronymic of the applicant;
passport details and registration address;
circumstances of the conflict, claims, indication of clauses of the contract violated by the insurer;
calculation of the amount of compensation (if the company incorrectly calculated the amount of compensation paid);
demand for payment of a specified amount;
details of the bank account to which the money must be transferred;
signature of the applicant and date of preparation of the document.

All documents related to the case must be attached to the paper.

Statement of claim to the court for the recovery of amounts under compulsory motor liability insurance

In any, even the most difficult situation, Legal experts will help you draw up a competent statement of claim. As a matter of fact, the requirements of all of the listed lawsuits under compulsory motor liability insurance can be included in one procedural document and considered in one process. The only difference is that many of the responsible parties (insurance company, the culprit of the accident, RSA) can satisfy the demands of the car owner or the victim through pre-trial settlement of the dispute. Consequently, the lawyer, even before filing a claim under compulsory motor liability insurance, will find out from the client which demands will be presented to the defendant and which were satisfied before the trial. Let's talk in more detail about each claim for damages in a traffic accident.

Firstly, the requirement to recover from the insurance company the amount of insurance compensation under the MTPL policy in favor of the victim in an accident. Claims for subrogation under compulsory motor liability insurance are filed against the insurance company of the person responsible for the road accident or against one’s own insurance organization in the manner of direct settlement of losses, upon receipt of a refusal to pay the insured amount in case of an accident due to the absence of an insured event.

Secondly, the requirement to recover the difference between the amount of insurance compensation and the cost of restoration of the damaged vehicle. Claims for the collection of additional payments under compulsory motor liability insurance are brought in cases where the insurance company recognized the occurrence of an insured event, but when assessing the cost of restoration repairs, it unreasonably underestimated the amount of insurance compensation under the compulsory civil liability insurance policy.

Not long ago, changes were made to the Rules for compulsory motor third party liability insurance of vehicle owners, according to which the injured party (car owner) has the right to file a claim about the occurrence of an insured event with his insurance company that provided him with the MTPL policy. Thus, a person resolves the issue of compensation for damage in an accident through an organization known to him and does not seek a compromise in resolving an insurance dispute with employees of an insurance company unknown to him.

Thirdly, the requirement to collect compensation from the Union of Auto Insurers in favor of the injured person in the event of bankruptcy of the insurance company or revocation of the license, as well as in the failure to identify the guilty person or the compulsory motor liability insurance policy. Lawsuits of this kind are brought against the responsible organization (RSA), which has created a special fund that finances compensation payments.

Fourthly, claims for compensation for the difference between the paid insurance amount and the actual damage presented to the culprit of the accident. The legislation on compulsory civil liability insurance provides for a limit on the insurance amounts payable to injured persons in the event of an accident. For compensation for property damage - up to 120,000 rubles, for compensation for harm to the life and health of citizens - 160,000 rubles. This claim can be made regardless of the payment of the insured amount; the main thing is to clearly establish the difference between the amount of insurance compensation and the losses incurred.

If claims are brought to court under compulsory motor liability insurance separately, then you will waste a lot of time. Therefore, as mentioned above, the civil procedural law provides for the possibility of combining all of the above claims. In this case, the question arises about the jurisdiction of claims under MTPL. The general rule regarding the jurisdiction of claims of a property nature applies here: to the court at the location (legal address, place of residence) of the defendant. If there is more than one defendant, then territorial jurisdiction is at the choice of the plaintiff.

Before answering the question of which court considers claims under MTPL, you should calculate the cost of the claim - property damage and the amount of harm caused. If the amount turns out to be more than 50,000 rubles, then the case will be considered by a magistrate court, and if the cost of the claim exceeds 50 thousand rubles - by a court of general jurisdiction.

During an insurance dispute, many questions arise, and it is not always possible to find answers to them, so come for a consultation with Legal experts and we will help you compensate for your losses in full.