Dispute Arises Between Russian and Armenian Insurance Companies Over Car Accident Reimbursement

Hello, we are assistance company, acting on behalf of Russian insurance company (hereinafter - RF IC).

On 24.06.2015 there was a car accident with two cars: one from Russian Federation, RF, another from Republic of Armenia, RA.

The guily party was driver from RA. On date of accident he had compulsory MTPL insurance policy in RA's Insurance Company (hereinafter - RA IC).

Victim was insured in RF IC under CASCO Agreement.

RF IC paid for the repair of the damaged car, and according to the law gained the right to demand insurance reimbursement from the guilty party.

As their representatives, we wrote pre-trial claim to RA IC in order to reimburse to the RF IC the amount paid for the repair of the damaged car.

RA IC declined our claim on the ground that the driver of the Russian vehicle didn't send to them copy of he's passport during 3 month time period since he get the list of documents.

But he or RF IC, or even we hadn't receive any list of document.

We wrote a reply and enclosed the copy of the passport as they asked.

After that we received another decline on our letter, where they stated that the damage was caused on amount of 228 EUR instead of 2737 EUR as we wrote in claim + despite the fact that we send them the copy of the passport, they still mentioned it as a ground to reject.

Basing on that, we send to the Central Bank of Armenia (CBA) the letter in which we asking to initiate an inspection of the insurance activity of RA IC, due to violation of legislation of RA.

After CBA received our letter it asked RA IC regarding this issue. At this moment, RA IC instantly pays those 228 EUR to the RF IC and tell CBA that on this case they payed for all liabilities.

We asked the RA IC why it's only 228 EUR? Because we have documents according to which the amount of repair for the damaged car was 2737 EUR. Independent expert assessed the damage in amount of 1200 EUR and while the process of repairing arose the facts of hidden damage and the cost of repair increased to the 2737 EUR. All the documents that we sent to RA IC confirms this fact.

RA IC told, that according to MTPL law, the only documents that could be used for making reimbursements is qualified Armenian Motor Insurance Bureau expert's report, and according to the report of such expert the cost of repair is 228 EUR.

(Just to say, we asked many times to send us this report, and only the month later they sent it... and the "report" was made on 2 sheets, with the logo of RA IC, without signature and seal and in docx format, even though the report had to be made by "qualified Armenian Motor Insurance Bureau expert")

Here is the question: who is correct in this situation? We are not acting inside Armenian Insurance Market as it would be two armenian vehicle and two armenian IC. We have the international case where our client had CASCO insurance policy in RF IC, and, first of all, to get compensation he had to act according to RF IC internal rules and regulations.

After whole this process was done, RF IC ask for the reimbursement from the guilty party in the order of (!)subrogation (!).

Could we try to convince them to pay the rest sum, according to armenian law, in pre-trial order? Or the only way is to sue in the court?

And if we sue, do we have chances to win this case? Who is correct in this situation, once again?