142 Russian insurance companies’ licenses have been terminated

On August 16, the Head of Federal Agency for Overseeing Insurance Ilia Lomakin-Rumyantsev signed the order on withdrawing licenses from 142 insurance companies because their authorized capital stock is smaller that it is required.
The Kommersant wrote that this was just a beginning, and about 300 insurance companies (1/4 of the overall Russian insurance companies) will have their licenses terminated. 

Тhe requirements for authorized capital stock of insurance companies vary from 10 tо 40 million roubles, depending on the kind of insurance. The requirements became tougher than the previous law “On organizing insurance services” had requested, and many insurance companies could not keep up with the new requirements.

Currently, there are about 1,416 insurance companies in the state register. The Head of Federal Agency for Overseeing Insurance said in June that after introducing the new requirements for the insurance companies’ capitals, about 300-400 such companies will withdraw from the market. According to Mr. Rumyantsev, about 300 insurance companies failed to increase their authorized capital stock, and their licenses will be terminated. The majority of the companies which lost their licenses, are small ones which were going to stop their businesses sooner or later, said Mr. Rumyantsev.

The Kommersant wrote that law-abiding insurance companies being established as joint-stock companies, can have their license terminated as well. There are 630 joint-stock companies out of the overall 1416 existing insurance companies. Joint-stock companies report on conducting additional issuance which is necessary for increasing authorized capital stock, to the Federal Administration of Financial Market in the first place. The insurance regulator gets information about this 6 months later. Currently, there are no special regulations for registering additional issuance of insurance companies, and for this reason the companies whose information was not received by the Federal Agency for Overseeing Insurance, can be terminated of their licenses as well.