One million Romanians may find their home insured even though unwillingly

One million clients of telecom operator Romtelecom have received or are supposed to receive over the coming weeks a home insurance policy along with their bill, which will enforce unless the recipient turns it down in ten days from the bill issue date.

This way, the respective customers could become parties to a home insurance contract even though they do not want it or they already have another insurance policy. The policy is issued by Astra Asigurari, one of the biggest companies on the market and is free in the first three months, after which the customer decides whether to prolong it or not. This one of the biggest cross-selling campaigns on the local market.

Beyond this issue, there is a question of whether an insurance policy should be imposed on someone who did not request it, because in this case the policy enforces if the target client does not turn it down, therefore there is no talk of acceptance by the client. What happens to those who are on holiday when the bill comes or simply forget to opt out?

“It’s benefit, it doesn’t do any harm. Romtelecom pays for the policy in the first three months. We’ve had only 100 explicit refusals, out of hundreds of thousands of policies sent,” said Radu Mustatea, Astra general manager.

On the other hand, lawyers say a contract may not be conditioned on a refusal but on an explicit not tacit acceptance on the part of the client.