Pensioners are subject to “unbearable” car insurance premiums and face other discrimination based on their age, civil servants’ trade union Pasydy said on Friday.
As well as the issue of car insurance, the union also complained that banks “refuse to provide any credit facilities to pensioners”.
“These issues have been raised before competent ministers, before President Nikos Christodoulides himself and before parliament. They have also been raised at a European level,” they said, adding that these efforts will “continue and intensify”.
These matters had been raised at the House labour committee earlier this year, with Disy MP Fotini Tsiridou pointing out the fact that drivers over the age of 70 years old pay much higher car insurance premiums than younger drivers.
Committee chairman Andreas Kafkalias had charged that “the elderly’s problems are not the government’s priority,” adding that problems faced by the elderly discussed by the committee as far back as six years ago have “not received any response” from the government.
This matter rings true on the issue of car insurance, with the House labour committee almost 14 years ago in February 2011 having first discussed the matter.
Then-committee chairman Pambis Kyritsis of Akel said elderly people “feel this injustice at their expense very strongly, because they feel that apart from everything else, this is also a way of restricting their active participation in society.”
“Everyone is forced to get insurance and we can’t have certain groups of people being exploited by the companies,” he added.
Nine months later, following parliamentary elections, the new committee chairman Andreas Fakontis, also of Akel, blasted insurance companies for what he described as “dire discrimination” shown toward the elderly.
“Insurance companies either refuse to insure people of this age, or once the person has reached 70 years old, they request over double the amounts to insure their cars,” he said.
