AZE.US
Renting a car in Azerbaijan may become more expensive if insurance rules are tightened for vehicles used in the rental market.
The discussion comes after mandatory insurance premiums were raised for taxis, based on the argument that vehicles used for passenger transport pose a higher risk of causing damage to other people’s property or health. Insurance experts now say a similar approach could eventually be applied to rental cars as well.
Their argument is that rental vehicles are regularly driven by multiple people over the course of a year, often with different levels of experience behind the wheel. That, they say, creates a higher risk profile than privately used cars and should be reflected in the insurance calculation.
Experts note that vehicles owned by legal entities already face insurance charges that are about 40% higher than those for cars owned by private individuals. But in their view, that still does not fully account for the added risk in the rent-a-car segment, where one vehicle may be used by dozens of different drivers in a single year.
They say a separate coefficient should eventually be introduced for rental cars, whether they are operated by individuals or companies, so that insurance premiums better match real usage patterns and actual exposure to risk.
Specialists also point to foreign practice, saying that in many countries taxis, rental cars and other commercially used passenger vehicles are insured under different rules than private cars. In the United States and parts of Europe, they say, higher-risk categories can face coefficients of 2 to 2.5.