Latvia’s crash payouts rise as vehicle numbers grow

Road crashes in Latvia have not become significantly more frequent over the past five years, but the average compulsory third-party insurance payout has risen by nearly 23 percent to more than 1,800 euros, LSM reported, citing data from the Latvian Motor Insurers’ Bureau.

The average payout is more than 300 euros higher than in 2021 and has increased by 50 euros since last summer.

Latvia had 1.28 million registered vehicles in July, nearly 2 percent more than a year earlier and 7.5 percent more than five years ago. As the number of vehicles grows, so does the number of insurance policies purchased, bureau chairman Jānis Abāšins said. He said the trend also reflects wider use of technology that automatically checks whether vehicles are insured.

Abāšins cited shopping centre car parks as an example of everyday risks, where vehicles can scratch or dent one another, break lights or cause other damage. Last year, insurers paid more than 490,000 euros for 563 crashes in shopping centre car parks, an average of 870 euros per incident, bureau data show.

The bureau said even minor incidents on roads or in car parks can lead to significant losses. If an uninsured vehicle causes a crash, compensation is paid to the injured party from the Guarantee Fund, after which the costs are recovered from the person responsible.