Baku, Azerbaijan, May 8
By Anvar Mammadov - Trend:
Azerbaijan’s insurance companies need to gain the population's trust, Mustafa Abbasbayli, chairman of the Azerbaijan Insurers Association (AIA), said in an interview with Trend.
He said that this is one of the main tasks facing the AIA today.
“If global directions are indentified, we have one goal - development of the insurance market,” he noted. “We divide this goal into several sub-goals. We believe that first, it is necessary to improve the rating of insurance companies. We all know that we have problems with insurance companies, and the population doesn’t completely trust them. So we want the population to have more positive thoughts about insurance companies.”
He added that to achieve this goal, the AIA is also considering a number of tasks.
“One of the issues is the improvement of the regulation of problems arising from insurance cases,” he said. “We are now working to bring the mediation institute to Azerbaijan. Mediation is the resolution of disputes through negotiations between the parties. This will give market participants the opportunity to resolve some disputes in the shortest possible time, for example in a day, and the most difficult disputes will be resolved in a month, and not in a year, as it is now, when the case is submitted to court.”
Touching upon other activities, Abbasbayli noted that the AIA intends to develop some areas of insurance that are lagging behind in Azerbaijan in order to achieve the growth of the market as a whole.
“Fortunately, Azerbaijan’s insurance market is developing, but unfortunately it is developing not in all directions, but in specific markets,” he added. “Life insurance sees the greatest development. Our goal is to increase differentiation in order to achieve growth in all types of insurance. Growth is also observed regarding compulsory types of insurance, but voluntary types of insurance don’t demonstrate growth at such a fast pace.”
“So, another area of our activity is to prepare proposals on compulsory insurance of doctor’s professional responsibility and compulsory insurance of tourists,” he said. “Besides, we want to develop insurance in the construction sphere. We have a lot of plans, so today we want to arrange them according to priorities.”
Twenty-one insurance companies operate in the insurance market of Azerbaijan.
(1.7 manats = 1 USD on May 8)