At the March 1 rally, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Chairman of the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC), read out demands, one of them being the reversing of the “ill-fated” decision on compulsory car insurance.

That proposal was a rather unexpected one. At the February 28 press conference, the ANC member Hrant Bagratyan said that compulsory car insurance accounted for 5% in the 7% economic growth in Armenia his January. So abolition of car insurance means slowdown in economic growth.

Interestingly, when the compulsory car insurance program was elaborated, the ANC never objected to it. It was the Heritage Party that did it. It even submitted an initiative to reverse relevant laws. Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan called the initiatives “absurd”. In none of its statements the ANC expressed its support to the Heritage Party’s initiative.

On the contrary, the ANC has always been for developing the insurance market development, including compulsory insurance. In its “100 steps” program the ANC pointed out the necessity for comprehensive development of Armenia’s insurance market and increasing insurance companies’ assets up to 50% of the GDP by 2015. Such results are impossible to achieve without development of compulsory insurance.

In its “Health care policy” program the ANC proposes compulsory medical insurance, which is a much more radical step than compulsory car insurance.

An idea can be welcomed, but mechanisms of implementing it can be unacceptable. However, the ANC was never seriously critical of the compulsory insurance plans. On the other hand, Ara Nranyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) was critical of the car insurance mechanisms.

Now that the compulsory car insurance system is, more or less, in effect, the ANC’s demand is too late. According the latest information, 90% of cars have been insured, and insurance companies are rather fair in paying insurance indemnities. The system is developing so any talks about abolition are irrelevant.