Car owners have been complaining against the rising premiums and delays in settling claims, while insurance companies justify the rates by citing the increasing number of traffic accidents that are leading to huge losses. A cross section of insurance experts told Al-Riyadh Arabic paper, sister publication of Riyadh Daily, that premiums have soared due to the losses incurred by the insurance companies in recent years. They pointed out that that the increase and decrease in the premiums depended on the performance of each company's auto portfolio. "If the company's performance is good, its insurance premiums are low, but if to the contrary, the rates will be high." The experts called on the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency to intervene and make it mandatory for insurance companies to provide customers with detailed copies of their insurance records. Moreover specific criteria must be taken into account while determining insurance premiums, such as a driver's record of accidents and traffic discipline. There should also be strict implementation of the regulation against the use of mobile phones while driving. An insurance expert, Dr. Adham Gad, agreed that the high auto insurance premiums were a result of the huge losses incurred by insurance companies. He attributed these losses to the constant prices wars between these companies. He noted that the individual insurers are the most affected by the rising premiums, while large companies having large fleets of cars have not been affected as they continue to enjoy low prices. Dr. Gad called on insurance companies to jointly adopt a common insurance policy whereby the premium remains fair at least for individuals. He further called for strict monitoring of the performance of insurance companies by the competent authorities. He said the comparison between insurance rates in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the Gulf States is unfair by virtue of the large number of vehicles insured in Saudi Arabia. For his part, Adel Al-Essa, the spokesman for the insurance companies, noted that auto insurance rates vary from company to another and that insurance experts so far have not come out with their prices for the current fiscal year 2017. Al-Essa said the rise and fall in auto insurance rates depends on the performance of each company's auto portfolio." If the performance is good in general there will be no increase but if it is weak then an increase in the overall rates will be inevitable." Al-Essa said "SAMA" decision to compel insurers, when pricing insurance policies, to make discounts to vehicle owners whose traffic records are free of violations and penalties will help in reducing the number of traffic accidents in the Kingdom. For his part, Sulaiman bin Ma'ayof, an insurance expert, said the noticeable development in the Saudi insurance market during the year 2016 , has been the high insurance premiums on vehicles, which are the major means of public transport in the Kingdom. Bin Ma'ayof noted that more than 50 percent of vehicles roaming the Kingdom roads were not insured. He said with a look back to the introduction of car insurance in 2007, we would note that the premium at that time hadn't exceed SR 365, but in the last five year the total volume of premiums grow to become almost 29 percent of total volume of insurance premiums in 2015. Bin Ma'ayof estimated the value of car insurance premiums by SR 11 billion, second only to the health insurance, estimated at about 18.5 billion riyals. "The increase in the volume of premiums of vehicles is due in the first place to the increase by insurance companies in the insurance premiums upon renewal of the insurance policy.", He Bin Ma'ayof attributed the increase in premiums to the application of SAMA instruction which was aimed at regulating the insurance market.
