It only took a year for insurers to realise that electric vehicles (EVs) are seriously eating into profit margins. As a result (and combined with other factors), the premiums on all vehicles’ insurance policies will be increasing in 2026.
Talking to Negócios / Antena 1 yesterday, the CEO of Fidelidade, Rogério Campos Henriques, said increased costs were “an inevitability”.
Not only are EVs 50% more likely to be involved in accidents – with higher than average repair costs – but there are now more vehicles on the road, and thus accidents generally are on the have increased, along with the costs of repairs.
Campos Henriques conceded that in spite of all the improvements to road and vehicle safety, accidents have continued; indeed they have increased – with the average cost of each accident ‘higher than previously due to the technical complexity of repairs’, as well as the cost of parts.
It is in this context particularly that EVs come in: insurers admitted a year ago, these have “a greater probability of accidents”, and when these happen, the average cost of repairs tends to be higher than the average cost of repairs for a combustion engine vehicle.
Adding to all these new-age headaches comes another obstacle: access to parts. “It is not as easy as it used to be”, Campos Henriques told his interviewers.
It was a wide ranging interview, in which the Fidelidade CEO said that premiums on health insurance policies will also be rising next year (again, because more people are using them, and for more interventions, as the SNS state health service is not stepping in as it used to).
This year has actually been a very expensive one for Fidelidade: it is the insurer for Carris, (Lisbon’s public transport company), which faces indemnifying families and victims of the Glória funicular tragedy in September, which killed 16 people and saw a number of others severely injured.
Campos Henriques told Negócios that the process of awarding compensation is taking time, as the amounts involved have yet to be defined.
“No one will be left without support”, he stressed. “These processes tend to be a bit longer. We have already paid for the expenses of all these victims, so to speak. Expenses for hospital treatments, travel, and family members”.
This type of process “is typically lengthy because the value of compensation in cases of death needs to be very clearly defined.”
Whatever the final calculations, the CEO conceded that the insurance company has ‘provisioned’ several million euros for this case, which is still technically under investigation, particularly when it comes to the apportioning of any kind of blame.
Sources: Negócios / Antena 1 / Lusa
