YEREVAN, February 11. /ARKA/. Armenian insurance companies are getting increasingly unhappy with the Armenia’s Single Window for Automotive (ASWA) platform, designed for handling vehicle insurance-related cases because of suffering additional losses, said Hayk Arakelyan, the head of the Union of Insurance Agents.

ASWA was launched on November 1, 2017 by BIVAC Armenia. ASWA is a web-based platform, which is designed for the digital exchange of information and regulation of issues related to mandatory insurance of vehicles. This platform can be used by any motorist, insurance agent or an employee of an insurance company for online conclusion of vehicle insurance contracts.

According to Arakelyan, the problem is that the service cost of the software used by ASWA (developed by a French company) is about 1-1.5 billion drams per year. He said local insurance companies cannot afford paying it because of the growing number of compensation claims.

He said to compensate for this payment, insurance companies will have to cut premiums to insurance agents, which in turn may result in layoffs. To avoid this problem Arakelyan suggested that a locally-designed analogue of the French software be used, which is as effective as the French one, but is much cheaper.

He said the French software had been chosen by the Armenian Car Insurers' Bureau without consulting with local insurance companies.

Artak Khachatryan , the founder of Tugank NGO that defends motorists rights, noted that insurance companies do not raise this issue because of fear of losing their licenses. According to him, many companies face problems since the French software does not have an offline mode.

According to BIVAC Armenia, from November 1, 2017 to December 31, 2018, more than 1 million mandatory vehicle insurance contracts had been signed by using the ASWA platform. The platform is connected to the insurance companies, the traffic police, the current databases of contracts, as well as other systems, thus enabling collection and analysis of all related data in one place.

Car owners can conclude online contracts by visiting the website of the Armenian Car Insurers Bureau at www.appa.am, as well as by using payment terminals, the websites of insurance companies, mobile applications and online banking systems, as well as the ASWA website. -0-