There will be a bonus for insurers and a malus for all citizens. This was said in the program “This Sunday“ on bTV by Bogdan Milchev from the Road Safety Institute.
The “bonus-malus“ system for “Civil Liability” insurance for cars came into effect this week, but will actually work in half a year. It became clear that it will take time to adapt the unified information system of the Guarantee Fund, as well as the individual systems of insurers.
“The “Bonus-malus“ system aims, on the one hand, to refine pricing and risk, and on the other hand - to influence road safety. All countries that have implemented the “Bonus-malus“ systems, in the first year of implementation, have noted a decrease in accidents and therefore victims by about 15%“, Milchev shared.
“Attempts to launch a “Bonus-malus“ system in Bulgaria have been going on for more than 17-18 years. In 2018-2019, there was a very serious push to introduce a system copied from a Greek model and from European good practices. At that time, several million were paid to a Greek company to prepare the criteria for “Bonus-malus“, he pointed out.
Milchev explained that at that time the entire society resisted. “Today, no one is resisting and no one is commenting on it, because it is clear to all of us that this is neither a “Bonus“ nor a “Malus“ system“.
“I thought a lot about why the Financial Supervision Commission, with some cosmetic changes to a regulation in the Insurance Code, is actually presenting us with some kind of “Bonus-malus“ system. There is no specific document with many rules and many conditions“, Milchev pointed out.
According to him, there will be a bonus for insurers and a malus for all citizens.
“A few months ago, the license of the insurance company “Dalbok“ was revoked. What must be paid by the Guarantee Fund for the insurances that this company has made is over 400 million leva. They are missing“, Milchev pointed out.
“There are about 150 million leva in the Guarantee Fund, which are collected jointly by all insurance companies that provide the “Third Party Liability“ service. This difference of about 200 million euros, which according to our calculations will exceed 300 million euros, must be paid in 2027 by all insurance companies“, he commented.
According to Milchev, insurance must be increased in order to compensate for this loss. “If they do it all at once, the excitement will be very strong. Maybe they will do it in portions“.
“Through the “Bonus-malus“ "We will pretend that it has increased because of the bonuses and penalties, because in Bulgaria we have a lot of accidents," he commented.
Milchev shared that 10 years ago, the number of cars paying "Civil Liability" was 2.5 million. Today, they are over 3.5 million.
“With 1 million more cars paying "Civil Liability" in 10 years. At the same time, "Civil Liability" has increased in price from 92 euros to 150 euros in 2025. This is again according to data from the Financial Supervision Commission. But the frequency of reported damages and accidents has dropped from 4.5 to 3.6," Milchev commented.
“That is, less than 3% of car owners will receive a penalty. "This means that the other 97% should get a bonus. And if we assume that those who will get a malus will have their insurance increased by 300 euros in the worst case, this means that the insurance of the other 97% will decrease by 30 cents," he added.