The Consumer Rights Protection Service of the Bank of Russia has recommended that airlines disable automatic confirmation on their website for passengers to purchase insurance when purchasing a ticket provided by almost all carriers. newspaper reports “Kommersant” citing the minutes following the March meeting with representatives of carriers, insurance companies and Rospotrebnadzor.
The protocol writes that due to predetermined insurance approval, a negative information background has arisen and the small size of the insurance premium does not motivate consumers to “return the policy and mask the problem”, in addition, the automatic tick Kommersant writes that the issue of insurance creates risks of concluding a contract without prior study.
Rospotrebnadzor said that in 2022, 82 warnings were given to shipping companies due to “auto insurance” and 12 indictments were sent to the court due to the imposition of insurance. At the same time, representatives of Ingosstrakh, SOGAZ, IC Soglasie, AlfaStrakhovanie during the meeting assured that consumers “almost no” complaints from them.
As the newspaper notes, for all major airlines, the insurance service is automatically added when buying tickets, its cost is 300 rubles. For up to 630 rubles, some carriers automatically include food (+399 rubles) and Doctor Online service (+300 rubles) in the ticket. The material says that if you multiply the number of passengers by the average insurance price, you get a fee of about 40 billion rubles, while the source of the publication said that the real volume of insurance is 2-5 billion rubles.
According to other sources of the publication, the commission received by the carriers is “very significant”. In general, the share of non-aviation revenue in total revenue for foreign low-cost airlines is up to 40%, for Pobeda – up to 30%, for traditional airlines – up to 10%.
In the coming days, the All-Russian Passenger Association plans to contact the Federal Air Transport Agency and recommend that carriers be banned from automatically including insurance on the ticket.
Previously, Air Transport Operators Association applied To the Ministry of Transport of the Russian Federation with a proposal for three new measures of state support for the Russian aviation industry.