Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Most Ukrainian railway passengers will be insured by a firm linked to Arbuzov–Yanukovych
Lviv, Odesa, Prydniprovska and Southern Railways 9 accepted the offers of LLC Insurance Company "Dominanta" in tenders to select an insurer for mandatory personal accident insurance for passengers on rail transport. This was reported in the "State Procurement Bulletin."
Southwestern Railway chose PJSC "SK Rarity" as its insurer.
In addition, PJSC "SK Brokbiznes" will insure suburban train passengers of the Southern and Lviv Railways. Suburban passengers of Prydniprovska and Odesa Railways will be insured by "Dominanta."
Insurers were chosen until the end of 2015.
However, the published documents do not specify any parameters of the tender proposals – what percentage of the fare the insurance fee will be, the size of the commission (agent) fee the railway will receive from insurance payments, the premium "for a high level of transport safety," the amount that will be allocated to financing preventive measures aimed at reducing injuries in transport (% of the amount by which insurance payments exceed insurance compensation payouts).
Also, the published documents contain no data on competition in the bids. Although the UNIAN agency, citing the press service of Ukrzaliznytsia, reported that the insurance companies that participated in the tenders included "Dnister", "Naftogazstrakh", "Inter-Polis", "Brokbiznes", "Ukrainian Fire-Insurance Company" (UPSK), "Dominanta", "Zlahoda", "Alfa Insurance", "AXA Insurance", "Persha", "Rarity", and "Universal."
The Dominanta website states that the firm won the tenders with an insurance payment of 0,21% for intercity routes and 0,25% for suburban routes. Brokbiznes’s percentage is 0,2%, Rarity’s is 0,15%.
This summer Ukrzaliznytsia, headed by new CEO Borys Ostapiuk, terminated contracts with six insurers from the Yanukovych era, the largest of which were "Dominanta", "Zlahoda" and "Ukrainian Insurance House." After that, one firm — "Inter-Polis" — was chosen as insurer without a competition.
The leadership of Ukrzaliznytsia explained that move by saying the state's aggregate share in that insurance company exceeds 50%. In addition, one of the main arguments was reducing the insurance fee for passengers from 1,5% to 0,4%. At the same time they promised that the total amount of insurance payouts would not change.
However, Inter-Polis never reduced insurance fees to the announced level. That firm previously belonged to Inter-Contact, whose ultimate beneficiary through Hong Kong Eastern Development Limited (Hong Kong) is Member of Parliament Oleksandr Yedin. Shortly before receiving the railway insurance monopoly, the firm, under unknown conditions, transferred 42% of its shares to the state-owned Ukrzaliznichpostach.
The main stake in the insurance firm "Dominanta" belongs to LLC "Actuarial Information and Research Center" (owned by a British resident), whose director is the former head of the Zaporizhzhia branch of the "Ukrainian Insurance House", Andriy Tarasov. The director of "Dominanta" is Oleksiy Rumyantsev, who also previously worked at UIH.
The "Ukrainian Insurance House" was a shareholder of Ukrbiznesbank from Viktor Yanukovych’s group when it was headed by Serhiy Arbuzov. In turn, in recent years "Dominanta" insured the vehicle fleet of the National Bank, which Arbuzov headed.
The insurance company "Brokbiznes" last year did not enter into the deal by the Buryak brothers to sell Brokbiznesbank to the group of Serhiy Kurchenko. Its main owner now remains PJSC "ZNKIF "Kaskad-invest", headed by Vitaliy Khomutynnik, chairman of the Verkhovna Rada committee on tax and customs policy.
Nashi Groshi
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Більшість пасажирів залізниць України страхуватиме фірма Арбузова-Януковича". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: ANTIKOR.