Starting in January 2018, fines for failing to carry mandatory liability insurance will rise to as much as 4,200 PLN. However, despite fines increasing year after year, there are still about 100,000 uninsured vehicles on Polish roads. It has been known for five years now that fines for failing to pay for liability insurance will increase every year. That’s because they were linked to the minimum wage at that time. Since the minimum wage will increase by 5 percent in 2018—from 2,000 to 2,100 PLN gross—the fine for failing to purchase mandatory liability insurance will also increase by that amount. Any passenger car owner who goes more than 14 days without valid insurance will pay 4,200 zł (currently 4,000 zł). For truck owners, the fine will be 6,300 zł (currently 6,000 zł), while for motorcycle or moped owners, it will be 700 zł (instead of 670 zł).
As is currently the case, fines will be lower if the period without insurance does not exceed 2 weeks. For example, for not having a valid policy for up to 3 days, the fine for a passenger car will be 840 zł, while for 4 to 14 days, it will be 2,100 zł. As insurance pricing experts note, fines have risen much faster than inflation over the past few years. From early 2011 to early 2017, this increase amounted to 46 percent. During the same period, the average price level rose by 7.5 percent. The problem is that these increasingly higher fines have not led to a decrease in the number of drivers taking to the roads in uninsured vehicles. According to estimates by the Insurance Guarantee Fund (UFG), there are still approximately 90,000–100,000 such vehicles on Polish roads. Why does this continue to happen? “Some drivers are counting on luck that they won’t get pulled over during a traffic stop; some are trying to save money on their policy, and some simply forget to pay for it,” explains an analyst from the Polish Chamber of Insurance. Meanwhile, year after year, the UFG issues an increasing number of payment demands due to the lack of mandatory insurance. In 2012, there were about 42,500 such notices; last year, the number rose to 71,900; and in the first half of this year alone, there were as many as 42,200.
– Currently, the owners of vehicles without liability insurance are identified through a meticulous analysis of data in our nationwide database of auto insurance policies. “Currently, two-thirds of cases of uninsured vehicles are detected in this very way,” says an advisor to the UFG president. The fund’s observations also show that this problem increasingly affects drivers who, due to rising insurance premiums, have decided to pay for their policies in installments. If they forget to pay one of these installments, the insurance does not automatically renew for the following year. The penalties imposed by the UFG are not the most severe consequences that careless vehicle owners may face. – Even if the UFG pays for damages caused by vehicles without liability insurance, it will ultimately seek reimbursement from the drivers anyway. And although the average amount of damages is 6,000–7,000 PLN, claims reaching several hundred thousand or even over a million PLN are not uncommon. Experts believe that, compared to other EU countries, Poland imposes lenient penalties on uninsured drivers. – Perhaps it is worth considering whether the regulations should provide for penalties such as a temporary suspension of the driver’s license for driving without liability insurance. If someone deliberately and knowingly fails to pay for liability insurance, aware that they may incur a debt they will never be able to pay off in their lifetime, then even more restrictive penalties won’t dissuade them either. Therefore, the solution should be to more widely educate vehicle owners about the consequences of failing to pay for liability insurance.
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