The Automobile Guarantee Fund (AGF), a fund established to compensate accident victims of hit-and-run vehicles, has dragged one of the leading insurance companies to court for failing to pay an accumulated contribution to the tune of Frw 262m.

AGF dragged Compagnie Générale d’Assurance et Réassurance du Rwanda (COGEAR) to the Nyarugenge Commercial Court for failure to settle the interest accumulated in delayed payments.

The fund which operates under the Ministry of Finance gets its finances from local insurance companies which are by law required to deposit 10 percent of the premiums paid by their clients.

The court proceeding of the case was scheduled to begin Monday but was adjourned to next week.

Over the years, COGEAR had accumulated close to Rwf150 million of which it paid in different installments, but failed to include the interest accrued over the years amounting to over Rwf 262m.

According to the law establishing AGF, every insurance company that delays to pay in time is charged 0.2 percent of the accumulated money after every month.

Speaking to The New Times, the AGF Director, General, Bernardin Ndashimye, said that COGEAR delayed for several months to pay the interest, which has accumulated to almost double the money they were supposed to pay.

"We are confident that we will win this case that is why we had to drag COGEAR to court,” said Ndashimye.

Asked about the outstanding bills, the Director General of COGEAR, Jean Baptiste Ntukamazina, said that his company is totally against the allegations and that they are ready to face the court.

"We will unveil our strategy of winning this case in court, I will not pre-empt the strategy ahead of time, but we will keep informing you as the proceedings go on,” said Ntukamazina.

The AGF was created in 1981 under the management of SONARWA, then a government insurance firm.

In 2002, it was disenfranchised from SONARWA following complaints by insurers that they could not keep depositing premiums to their competitor.

According to Ndashimye, the fund currently faces challenges of increased numbers of fraud and payment default by some insurance companies.

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