The insurance payouts for the four major German brand carmakers in Korea rose 25.2 percent on average from 2010 to 2012 while those for Korean cars grew by 1.9 percent, a lawmaker said on Sunday, citing data from the nation’s top insurers.
Mercedes-Benz gave the highest insurance payout for a single car accident, while Volkswagen vehicles took the most days to be repaired, said Rep. Min Byung-doo of the main opposition Democratic United Party.
Mercedes-Benz incurred an average insurance payout of 4.15 million won ($3,800) last year, followed by Audi with 4.07 million won, BMW with 3.86 million won and Volkswagen with 3.73 million won.
The figures compared to an average 1.02 million won for Korean cars, the lawmaker said in a rare release of such figures.
Min said that the prices of auto parts and labor costs for repair work of the German carmakers stood at 2.01 million won and 1.16 million won, 4.72 and 2.13 times higher than those for Korean cars, respectively.
The lawmaker also revealed the repair period of each carmaker, which he said was an important indicator to calculate insurance payouts.
Volkswagen cars took the longest repair time of 10.1 days last year, more than double the 4.3 days for Korean cars. Audi came in second with 7.3 days, followed by BMW’s 6.9 days and Mercedes’ 6.4 days.
Unlike other carmakers which have reduced repair times, the period for Volkswagen was up from 7.8 days in 2010.
With the nation’s antitrust watchdog embarking on a large-scale investigation into repair costs and dealership operations of imported car brands here, the lawmaker said he plans to propose a bill within the month that obliges, among other things, disclosure of more specific repair costs.
By Lee Ji-yoon (
jylee@heraldcorp.com)
