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The Philippine Insurers Association said an interconnectivity
program for car insurance policies has created big problems for the
industry, eight months after its initial implementation.
The group was referring to the Department of
Transportation and Communicatons-Land Transportation Office-Stradcom-CTPL
(Comprehensive Third Party Liability) interconnectivity program.
According to the group, despite the exorbitant
fees being charged by Stradcom (the Information Technology
contractor) that has reached an estimated gross of P20 million per
month, the CTPL industry has yet to see any benefits from the
program.
A CTPL policy is a mandatory vehicle insurance
that guarantees a certain amount of benefit for victims of car
accidents.
The group accused Stradcom and several
government officials of “pocketing” majority of the income.
Insurance companies attest that all problems
prior to interconnectivity such as the multiple use of a single
Certificate of Coverage (COC) for two or more vehicles; the
“fake” COCs; and the undervaluing of insurance policy still
exists.
“To make matters worse, additional problems
stemming from interconnectivity cropped up such as the frequent
technical problems of Stradcom communication facilities, and the
wasted COCs, because of the inaccurate validation system of Stradcom
that caused major inconvenience and additional expense to the
public,” the group said in their letter sent to The Manila Times.
The insurance association appealed to
Transportation and Communications Secretary Leandro Mendoza to clear
the issue and demanded the immediate replacement of the present
system.
They reiterated their support to the proposal
made by another IT company that expanded the interconnectivity not
only to the LTO-IT System, but also to all insurance companies,
banks and payment centers to establish the validity and authenticity
of each COC uploaded, and to assure an accurate computation of
insurance fees, and its applicable taxes and dues payable to the
government.
This system, they claim, is priced the same as
the “ineffective and inutile” system provided by Stradcom.
They added that they will ask the help of
Congress if Mendoza does not heed their complaints.
Earlier, Melecio Mallillin, president of
Commercial Credit Corp. Insurance and the Insurance Institute for
Asia and the Pacific, questioned the P45-fee being collected by
Stradcom in facilitating car registration transactions.
Mallillin said the LTO is implementing an
interim system under which vehicle owners are allowed to buy their
CTPL policies from non-life insurance companies of their choice.
The LTO cashier collects P50 as processing fee,
of which P45 goes to Stradcom.
“P45 is too much…. Imagine we have four
million cars being registered yearly, that is a whopping P180
million.” he said.
-- Francis Earl A. Cueto
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