At first glance, CASCO insurance against car theft or theft is a fairly simple insurance product. Indeed: the vehicle was lost - the car owner received the appropriate insurance compensation. He didn’t disappear - then he doesn’t really need compensation.
But as practice shows, problems with this option car owners have enough, and primarily because of some misunderstanding of the nuances of this type of insurance. Just taking and calculating CASCOs online or at the insurer's office and buying a policy does not mean ensuring your financial security. So, for example, many car owners do not even know that theft and theft are different concepts (and different risks). It is no coincidence that two different articles were allotted for such actions in the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation - 166 and 158, respectively:
- Theft of a car is its unlawful and gratuitous seizure in someone's favor.
- Theft is the taking of a vehicle without theft.
That is, in the first case - it was appropriated, in the second - "they took it to ride without demand." Therefore, when studying the text of the CASCO policy and standard insurance rules, be sure to pay attention to this. By the way, insurance rules must be definitely studied, since this document may contain important provisions that are not in the policy. Otherwise, you can lose the car, but you can’t get the insurance indemnity.
Important Nuances
Insurers are perfectly able to assess potential risks and the causes that contribute to their occurrence - this is the essence of insurance activity. Consequently, the terms of the insurance contract usually indicate the circumstances that are grounds for refusal to pay insurance compensation.
For example, a policy or CASCO policy may contain mandatory requirements for the location of the vehicle. Moreover, the policyholder has to prove the fulfillment of these requirements on the basis of written documents. If the policy states that at night the vehicle in the absence of the car owner should only be in a guarded parking lot, it means that he needs to conclude a written storage agreement and receive payment documents about payment for storage. Otherwise, he will be refused insurance compensation.
A similar situation is with the car equipment anti-theft devices. The policy states that the vehicle must be equipped with a certain type of device (it is possible that it is installed in a specialized company). So, you need to install. Failure to comply with such requirements does not always entail a complete denial of insurance payment, but often significantly reduces its size.
Insurers also establish other grounds for refusing or reducing the amount of compensation, including:
- Leaving the doors or windows of the car not closed.
- Careless storage of keys and (or) documents for a car.
- Lack of notification of the loss of keys or documents if such an event occurred.
- Carrying out entrepreneurial activities in the transportation of third parties without prior notice to the insurance company, etc.
Obviously, all these circumstances contribute to an increase in the risk of car theft or theft, and therefore the attitude of insurers to them is corresponding. In order to avoid the risk of losing a car, and with it the right to receive insurance compensation, it is better to first study the conditions of insurance, and only then think about the price of the policy. After all very simple, but for this you need to have a clear idea of what you are willing to pay for.