Car insurance claims in Peru

Peru does not ask a court to find fault before a traffic victim is paid. Article 29 of Ley 27181, the Ley General de Transporte y Tránsito Terrestre, says that civil liability arising from traffic accidents caused by motor vehicles is objective, in conformity with the Civil Code, and that the driver, the owner of the vehicle and, where there is one, the land-transport operator are jointly and severally liable for the damage caused. The Civil Code supplies the mechanism: whoever causes harm through a risky or dangerous good, or by carrying on a risky or dangerous activity, must repair it (art. 1970), and under the ordinary fault head it is the author who must discharge himself of intent or negligence (art. 1969). The regulation made under the law extends the joint liability to material damage as well as personal, for occupants and non-occupants alike (TUO art. 2, as amended in 2004).

Every vehicle circulating in the country must carry the SOAT — the Seguro Obligatorio de Accidentes de Tránsito (Ley 27181 art. 30.1; TUO art. 3). It is a personal-accident cover, not a liability policy: it covers death and bodily injury to anyone, occupant or non-occupant (TUO arts. 4 and 28), and the statute describes it as unconditional, immediate, unlimited in the number of losses and not substitutable (art. 30.4). The minimum heads per person are four UIT for death, up to four UIT for permanent disability, up to one UIT for temporary incapacity, up to five UIT for medical expenses and up to one UIT for funeral expenses (TUO art. 29, as amended in 2005). Temporary incapacity is paid per day at a thirtieth of the Remuneración Mínima Vital up to that ceiling, and the death and disability heads are not cumulative (art. 30). For 2026 the UIT is S/ 5,500. Nothing in the compulsory scheme pays for a damaged vehicle.

The SOAT is paid without any inquiry into who was to blame: article 14 of the regulation requires payment of expenses and indemnities «sin investigación ni pronunciamiento previo de autoridad alguna», on nothing more than proof of the accident and of the death or injuries it caused, whoever was responsible and however the premium was being paid. Taking that money costs the victim nothing in the wider claim — it is neither an admission nor a presumption of the driver’s guilt, and it does not affect the right to sue whoever is civilly responsible under the general law, though what the SOAT paid is set off against that award (art. 19). The insurer must pay within a maximum of ten days from the filing of the listed documents: the traffic-accident record form, and then the death certificate, medical certificate or invoices as the case requires (art. 33). Where the victim’s imprudence was merely a contributing cause, the judge reduces the award according to the circumstances (Civil Code art. 1973); where it was the determining cause of the harm under the objective head, there is no liability at all (art. 1972).

The clocks are short at one end and long at the other, and they are not the same clock. The right to ask the insurer for the SOAT indemnity expires within the limitation period of the extracontractual indemnity action under art. 2001 inc. 4 of the Civil Code — two years — and for a death claim that period does not begin until the insurer’s publication and notification duty under art. 42 has run out (TUO art. 18, as substituted by D.S. 009-2019-MTC, 13 March 2019); insurers must publish the names of the unclaimed dead in a national newspaper and on national and local radio for two consecutive months. Actions founded on an insurance contract, by contrast, prescribe in ten years from the loss (Ley 29946 art. 78). Under that same law silence has a price: where there is no adjustment agreement, the loss is deemed consented if the insurer has not pronounced on the amount claimed within thirty days of the policy’s documentation being complete, and payment is then due within thirty days of that consent, with default interest at one and a half times the average active lending rate (art. 74). The insured proves the loss and its amount, the insurer proves any ground that releases it (art. 77). Notice of a loss is due «en los plazos que para dicho efecto establezca la Superintendencia» (art. 68) — the deadline belongs to the regulator, not to the statute, and the resolution that fixes it has not yet been verified against a primary text, so no notice period is stated here. Complaints go to the Superintendencia de Banca, Seguros y AFP. Diminished value, cover for uninsured drivers, and which payment clock governs where the SOAT and the insurance-contract law meet have likewise not been verified and are not stated here.