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Severe penalties await 800,000 owners of vehicles driving without insurance. They will first be warned by the Ministry of Finance that will urge them to pay fines, and if they do not pay them, and if they do not pay their insurance, more severe penalties will be imposed on them.

Those owners who do not pay are threatened by the following measures:

• deprivation of number plates;
• deprivation of their driving licence for 10 days;
• deprivation of number plates and driving licence for two years in case of an accident;
• deprivation of number plates and driving licence for three years in case of second offence;
• a fine of € 500 for cars and € 250 for motorcycles;
• imprisonment of up to two months.

14% of vehicles are being driven without insurance

According to the Chairman of the Motor Committee of the Hellenic Association of Insurance Companies, Dimitris Zorbas, the number of uninsured vehicles has decreased because of the new laws and is less than 600,000 According to him, in the past their number reached 1.5 million. The police claim that 14% of vehicles are not insured.

It is believed that under the previous regime of insurance, 300,000 people have gone about company to company without paying, using loopholes in legislation.

Everything in insurance policies is being changed

Apart from changes in fines and penalties, there will be changes in the drafting of insurance policies as well.

In particular:

• The obligatory car insurance contract becomes specifically a fixed-term contract. This means that there is a fixed start date and time and a specified end date and time.

• The renewal of the insurance contract or the drawing up of a new one is permitted only after prior payment by the insured person of the respective premium. In fact, insurance companies are prohibited by law from transferring the contracts to the insured persons, if the latter have not paid their insurance.
• The adhesive insurance sign is repealed. The policy shall be proof for conclusion of the contract.
• If the client has paid the premium, but has not yet received the policy, the law provides that until they receive the policy, the conclusion of the insurance will be proven for the first five days of coverage by the payment document related to the insurance premium due. Therefore, in this case, the insured persons must always carry with them proof of payment of the premium and a document from the insurance company related to the conclusion of the vehicle’s insurance. Such document that must accompany the payment document can be the notification of payment.