Saudi Gazette report

JEDDAH — Insurance companies have announced that only 45 percent of the cars in the Kingdom are insured despite the new car insurance policies, Al-Eqtisadiyah reported.

Insurance companies official spokesman Adel Al-Essa said there aren’t any accurate surveys available on car insurance status in the Kingdom.

“Not all insurance companies are able to adapt to the new policy. Many of them won’t be changing their prices just to be able to sell their products in the market,” said Al-Essa.

National Insurance Committee member Abdulaziz Abu Al-Saudi said the new insurance policy will hardly affect insurance rates and its market.

“The policy was drafted to rectify some of the mistakes in the old policy. Most of the companies have been adhering to the new policy anyways. Its implementation won’t disturb the market. In addition to that, most cars in the Kingdom are uninsured. The renewal of insurance is not linked to the renewal of a driver’s license which allows many drivers to procrastinate on renewing their insurance,” said Al-Saudi.

He added a driver’s license is renewed every three years while an insurance is up for renewal every year.

“Many drivers just renew their insurance when they are renewing their drivers license even though all of the Gulf countries require an annual check up on cars that were owned for more than three years,” said Al-Saudi.

The new policy included a temporary insurance card given to clients who are cancelling one insurance contract to convene another onet. The operation may take some time. Therefore, the new policy insures that there is temporary measure taken to ensure that the car is insured.

The policy also enlists that all reimbursements defined in settlements are to be deposited to the client’s bank account directly. The client has to also inform the insurance company of any major changes to the car within 20 days of implementing the change. If an accident occurred while the insurance contract had expired, the client has 50 work days to renew his insurance.