Insurance issued with a loan is being massively rejected in Russia

In Russia, they began to abandon previously purchased policies en masse. In the first three months of 2025, customers refunded 3.6 million insurance claims, 23 times more than in the same period of 2024. This follows from the data of the National Rating Agency (NRA), which was analyzed by Izvestia.

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The bulk of the refunds accounted for credit life insurance — 3.5 million cases. The NRA attributes this to misseling: banks impose such products on borrowers.

In total, individuals and companies returned 6.1 billion rubles in the first quarter of 2025. The largest amounts were for cumulative life insurance, while credit policies were much cheaper.

Citizens have the right to apply for a refund on their purchased insurance during the "cooling-off period." Now a person has 30 days to cancel any additional services purchased with the loan, the press service of the Central Bank added. In addition, starting in 2024, banks are required to promptly notify borrowers of additional services and deadlines for refusal. The Bank of Russia monitors compliance with these measures, the regulator stressed.

They added that these innovations may lead to an increase in refusals from insurance and other additional services purchased with the loan.

Now, when applying for, for example, a car loan, the contract often provides for the client's obligation to issue a policy, explained Gleb Yakovlev, Vice President of the VSS. The fact is that often the seller makes a profit only from additional services. However, then a person has every right to refuse insurance, and many people use this opportunity.

Read more in the exclusive Izvestia article:

Tricky policy: insurance issued with credit is being massively rejected in Russia