Clarifications regarding the insurance policies offered to the Romtelecom customers
On April 16th, 2010, Romtelecom, in partnership with ASTRA Asigurari, launched a project by which Romtelecom sent to some of his residential customers a free home insurance policy, for a three months period. As the communication for this benefit wasn’t clear enough, it generated some misunderstandings and reactions from some of the customers and this is exactly why we’d like to offer some additional clarifications.
About the initial project
Romtelecom wished to offer its customers a free benefit on top of the services provided by the company, by contracting home insurance policies for a period of three months. To be more precise, if during the three months the customer’s home would have been affected by a fire, an earthquake, a flood etc, the customer could receive from Astra Asigurari a compensation of up to 20,000 Euros, without having to pay anything for it. As a matter of fact, there are already four cases of people (one in Bucharest, one in Hunedoara county and two in Vrancea county) who will be compensated following fires that affected their homes.
In addition, Romtelecom obtained an additional optional benefit for its customers from the same insurance company – in case they were interested, they could choose to further extend the policy beyond the three months for a special price of 10 Euros/year, which means 50% of the Astra list price for the policy. The policy was covering four additional risks to the compulsory ones set based on the law introducing the mandatory insurance policies.
If the customers were not interested to benefit from the free policy for three months or if they didn’t want their data to be sent to ASTRA Asigurari in view of being further contacted, they could let Romtelecom know either by calling 1930 (which is always free of charge in the company’s network) or by visiting one of our shops. Anyway, the data sent to Astra were referring to name, address, phone number, which are already available in any phone book.
On the other hand, if a customer was interested to benefit from the special and optional offer to extend the policy beyond the free three months, he/she could choose to do so either by expressing the agreement when contacted over the phone by a representative of ASTRA Asigurari or by calling the special charge number 0903904905 (10 Euros per call).
A few tens of thousand customers appreciated this special offer and already expressed their agreement to benefit of an annual home insurance policy for a price of 10 Euros.
In case the customers ignored the initial policy or they were not interested to have any other conversation about this topic, the initial policy was going to expire anyway at the end of the three months period. No policy was automatically extended and billed for any customer.
Romtelecom position regarding the authorities’ reaction
On April 29, 2010, the Commission for Insurances Monitoring (CSA) issued an unexpected decision, asking ASTRA Asigurari to denounce the free insurance policies. Unfortunately this decision was taken by CSA without asking an official position and relevant information from the parties involved. However, following the decision, both companies brought to the attention of the CSA additional documents and clarifications regarding the partnership between them. Romtelecom is considering taking all possible legal measures to act in what we consider to be the interest of our customers.
On May 5, 2010, the National Authority for the Monitoring of the Personal Data Management (ANSPDCP) decided that Romtelecom did not fully complied with the legal provisions regarding the personal data transfer. Romtelecom already filed a complaint with the court, against this decision, as we consider we acted in accordance with the relevant legal provisions. However until such time when the court will rule in this case, Romtelecom decided to suspend the transmission of new customers’ data to Astra.
On May 14, 2010, the National Authority for Customers’ Protection (ANPC) sent a letter to Romtelecom and ASTRA Asigurări, asking them to better clarify the communication with the customers for the insurance policies. To this extent Romtelecom decided to send a clarification letter to the 791166 customers who received the free insurance policy. From all these customers, 0.06% have filed complaints to Romtelecom, a few tens of thousands chose to contract another annual insurance policy and there are already four cases of people (one in Bucharest, one in Hunedoara county and two in Vrancea county) who will be compensated following fires that affected their homes. ASTRA Asigurari intends to maintain as valid the free of charge insurance policy that the customers benefit from for the three months period.
Background information
Offering free insurances to the customers represented another way in which Romtelecom wanted to repay their loyalty. The company is interested to serve its customers as good as possible, based on advantageous offers and free benefits offered in addition to Romtelecom’s services, to come to their support in the present difficult economic situation.
The home insurance policy is the second such benefit granted by Romtelecom in partnership with ASTRA Asigurari. In November 2009, the company launched for its customers the optional unemployment insurance, offered for free to any new customer when activating a Romtelecom service.