The Syrian Insurance Federation (SIF) issued a statement expressing its regret that the bank accounts of insurance companies and SIF have been frozen in pursuant to the instructions of the Central Bank for more than a month without clarifying the reasons for this freeze from the relevant authorities.
According to Al Iqtisadi News (aliqtisadi.com), the SIF statement said that although insurance companies have completed the submission of documents that were recently requested from them, their inability to transact their bank accounts, in addition to the SIF bank account, has a major impact on shaking confidence in the insurance companies and the service they provide, which threatens the collapse of this sector.
The statement added that freezing bank balances for a relatively long period will lead to the inability of companies to fulfil their financial obligations due for various insurance policies, especially the dues of healthcare service providers where many of them have stopped offering their services as a result of not receiving their financial dues for a long period.
Moreover, insurers are also unable to pay the claims rising from motor traffic accidents and taxes and fees of various types within the legal deadlines granted to them. In addition, several insurers were unable to pay salaries and wages of December. The same goes for the SIF as it was unable to pay insurance companies certain commitments arising from issuing compulsory motor insurance covers.
The statement added that the Federation has been communicating with the relevant authorities including the Ministry of Finance, the Syrian Insurance Supervision Authority and the Central Bank in order to resolve this issue in order to avoid possible negative complications that would result from the freezing of the insurance companies’ bank accounts.