The members of the Association of Raspberries of Serbia have not concluded contracts on insurance of children dissatisfied with the conditions offered by insurance companies, and they expect help from the National Bank of Serbia (NBS), the president of the Association Dobrivoje Radovic told Tanjug.
“No agreement has been reached so far with insurance companies on the conditions for insuring children this year from frost, hail and other natural disasters. In February, the signing of contracts started first for frost, not only for raspberries but for all fruits in Serbia, and we are there they encountered a huge problem to sign contracts in February, and that the frost insurance policy is valid from April 4,” said Radovic.
He explained that this is one of the reasons why so far less than one percent of the members of the Association have insured their little ones.
He praised the Ministry of Agriculture, which met the producers and changed the rulebook according to which the state refunds from the insurance policy were increased to 70 percent of their value, and which suggested to the insurers that the policies are valid until March 1.
“However, some insurance companies are still concluding contracts, although March is valid from April 4. We have sent a letter to the National Bank and we expect a meeting with the governor to see if these foreign companies came just to take the porphyry they have until care,” Radovic said.
The first sign that this is happening, he adds, was given by the members of the Association from Leskovac and Razanj, because the insurers first visited that area because the vegetation period starts there earlier.
“When we were told that the policy was valid from April, we reacted on February 10 or 11, and already on the 13th we had a meeting at the Ministry of Agriculture, which amended the rulebook and recommended that the policy be valid from March 1, I think now a very important meeting in the NBS and that many of these insurance companies, which will not work according to the rules, will lose their licenses,” believes Radovic.
He emphasized that there are problems when it comes to insuring crops from the city and other natural disasters, because insurers’ agents, says Radović, go out to the field late, when the owners of the plantations have partially repaired the damage.
“As for the city, fire, storm, we have the same problem over the years. Today, report damage from the city or storm, and they come out on the fifteenth or twentieth day. You have to apply agro-technical measures to cultivate your plantation, and in those 15 days return it 20 percent to its original condition, if the damage was 50 percent. And they know about it, they come then and say that you allegedly had 10 percent damage or less,” claims Radovic.
He assessed that the NBS, as an institution that supervises the work of insurance companies, should react so that it would not happen again that a small number of raspberries insure crops despite a generous state subsidy.
“According to the regulations, the insurer must assess the damage no later than the fifth day from its occurrence, and the damage must be paid by the tenth day,” the president of the Association of Raspberry Growers of Serbia notes.
Radovic warns of another phenomenon that affects the amount of paid damages in case of disasters.
He says that the agents of the insurance companies offer the producers to state a lower class of the country where the raspberries are planted in the contract, in order to pay a smaller amount of the policy, and notes that this can significantly reduce the amount of compensation later if the crops die in bad weather.
“Insurers write that the seventh class of land is instead of the fourth so that the policy would cost less, but if a disaster occurs, they estimate significantly less damage, because the yields on the seventh class are lower,” states Radovic.
When asked why raspberries agree to this manipulation, he answered that “not everyone reads the contracts”, and that because of that, the Association must warn the producers and the competent institutions.
Radovic concluded that the Ministry had done its part of the job and appealed to the NBS to help as well, adding that otherwise the Association would address the President of the Republic, RTV reports.
