Agency Rejects Request To Hike Auto Insurance

The Superintendence of Pension Funds (SUPEN) this week rejected a request to increase car insurance.

The request by the National Insurance Institute (INS) would have affected all mandatory insurance rates. The vehicle registration, called the marchamo, would have increased by 14 percent.

SUPEN officials said earlier this week that the “information given by INS was insufficient,” the daily La Nación reported.

Apparently, the INS included on its petition car accident statistics dating back 10 years. SUPEN officials said they could not approve the request to increase car insurance rates because they needed to examine more recent data.

Mandatory auto insurance will cover ¢3 million (about $5,500) per each person who is killed or injured in an accident beginning Jan. 1, said INS’s Web site.

Earlier this year, the Legislative Assembly approved laws opening the insurance market to competition. The auto insurance market, over which INS has held an 84-year monopoly, will not allow open market competition until 2011.

–Vanessa I. Garnica