Газета.ru.26.03.2010.Vadim Klementyev

Газета.ru

Finance

INSURANCE

Insurers found a launderer in Kirghizia and Uruguay

TEXT: Irina Gahova

In 2008 Russian insurance companies transferred a quarter of their risks to countries that are exotic for reinsurance market: Uruguay and Kirghizia. Supervising bodies suspect and experts are confident that laundering money is hidden behind it. In total, the share of schemes makes more than 40 % at reinsurance market.

The Russian Insurance Supervision Service (Rosstrahnadzor), the Federal Tax Service and the Department of Economic Security (DES) of the Ministry of Internal Affairs took an interest in situation with reinsurance of Russian risks. In 2008 24 % of risks transferred abroad in reinsurance area were shared between Uruguay (9 %) and Kirghizia (15 %), the Deputy Head of the Federal Insurance Supervision Service of the Russian Federation Oleg Pilipets reported at the 14th Reinsurance Conference. For comparison: only 22 % of reinsurance premium went to England, and 18 % to Germany.

 “In Uruguay and Kirghizia strict requirements to licensing of offshore reinsurers are missing, and there are no strict requirements for reservation of reinsurers’ capital the way they is used at other developed markets”, that is the fact underlying love of Russian insurance companies to exotics of this kind, the General Director of Profile Rе reinsurance company Vadim Klementyev explains. –

With a large slice of probability we can say that almost all operations connected with reinsurance in the specified jurisdictions are so-called schematic reinsurance”.

As a matter of fact, it is a trivial outflow of companies’ capital abroad. “The classical scheme of laundering money in this case looks approximately as following: the enterprise insures the property against any non-existent risks, against what will never occur, – Natalia Komleva says, the leading expert in rating of insurance companies of Expert RА rating agency. – Then these risks go to reinsurance abroad. Money received for reinsurance is cashed there at the cost of business expenses or in some other way. As a result, enterprises’ money outflows abroad and it deposits there, in foreign accounts of Russian companies’ management as well.

However, in the Russian market the share of reinsurance schemes gradually decreases. According Expert RА rating agency’s data, in 2008 it made 55 %, whereas in 2009 – only 41.1 %. Besides, for a year the majority of recent leaders in reinsurance market left it: licenses were revoked from or suspended for such companies as Universal PO, Gold Garant, Srednevolzhskaya PK , Iskusstvo Strahovania, NESO, Mikora-Re, Iterma.

But despite general falling of pseudo-insurance operations share, experts note growth of a number of “schemes” in some companies with a reliable business reputation. “While conducting the research, we noticed that

due to the crisis the share of schemes in regular retail companies which usually do not specialize in such things increased a little,

– Komleva remarks. – They have increased the share of schemes up to 10 % at times for the purpose of  compensating losses brought by retail at the expense of these operations”. And such companies (from Top-50), in 2009 began to transfer risks in reinsurance to offshore more actively.

Oleg Pilipets reported that Rosstrahnadzor will brake transactions causing suspicion through court action. “Your tax liabilities influence the paying capacity of the market and its stability”, - in this way he explained his actions to insurers.

“Only court can prove that the transaction has been made with a view of evading from taxation,

– that’s how Vadim Klementyev explains complexity of struggling against “schemes”. – We have precedents when the court made judgments related to a number of companies, but to declare all companies with the large turnovers  schematic without the court decision sounds incompetent”.

Most schemes, according to Expert RА rating agency estimates, belongs to agricultural risks insurance (59 % of premiums from it are “schemes”), cargo insurance (39 %), other kinds of property and liabilities insurance (19 %), construction and mounting risks insurance (17 %), property insurance of fire and other risks (17 %).