The president of the Union of Work Risk Insurers (UART), Mara Bettiol, has given the order to initiate a process to increase insurance rates. The UART communicated that they are not promoting increases and that each company determines its policy regarding timing and costs.
The main business chambers are already being informed about these agreed increases, which will incur additional costs for companies in various sectors such as industry, mining, supermarkets, and transportation, with the latter being the most affected.
Companies in these sectors have already approached the government to address the issue and seek some type of support that allows them to improve their margins in light of these new projected rates.
Work risk insurers have reported that the system is in crisis due to the exponential increase in labor lawsuits, hence they propose a 40% increase in rates starting this month, which will represent a significant increase in costs for companies.
According to the UART, last year there were more than 125,000 lawsuits for workplace accidents, which represents a 6.8% increase compared to the previous year. This high rate of litigation negatively affects employers, workers, and the insurers themselves, undermining the stability of the system as a whole.
The UART asserts that this judicial situation is destabilizing the operation of businesses and affecting the competitiveness of the national economy. They claim it is urgent to correct this judicial cost in Argentina, which has become a structural problem for all economic actors in the country.
The proposed increase adds to the inflationary escalation of recent years, which has severely impacted companies' profit margins. Despite demands from the business sector, the official response has been that there are no available resources to intervene.
Starting this week, all companies under coverage of the ART will begin to receive notifications of increases that, initially, will reach a 40% increase in rates. The call will be led by Experta, the ART of the Werthein Group, although participation is expected from other companies such as Galeno, Segunda Seguros, and Grupo Provincia.
