Buying Insurance Online in Türkiye: What to Check

Is the Agency on the Registry?

The first check is an identity check. Insurance agencies in Türkiye must be entered on the Levha — the registry maintained by TOBB, the Union of Chambers and Commodity Exchanges — and no agency activity may be carried on without that entry. TOBB publishes a page for querying registered agencies, and SEDDK, the regulator, publishes information on agencies as well.

Article 19 of the Insurance Agencies Regulation makes that identity visible as well. Its first paragraph requires the agency's trading name to appear on letterheads, posters, advertisements, signage, websites and any other electronic medium. Its fourth paragraph requires a plate bearing the trading name and the Levha registration number to be displayed visibly at the entrance of premises where agency business is carried on.

In practice, where a website shows only a brand and a phone number, what is missing is not design polish but regulatory compliance.

Which Details Must Appear on the Site?

The second check is the page itself. Article 19/2 of the Insurance Agencies Regulation provides that in those media the word "sigorta" (insurance) may not be used without "acenteliği" (agency) or "aracılığı" (intermediation) alongside it. Article 19/3 prohibits agencies from using corporate identity elements that create the impression that they are an insurance company, or that are untrue, misleading or deceptive.

Article 19/6 requires agencies to inform prospective policyholders of the insurers they act for and of the powers those insurers have granted them, and to publish that information on their website where they have one. In other words, whose policies the agency can sell — and what it is authorised to do — belongs on the site.

On the distance selling side, the Regulation on Distance Contracts for Financial Services applies. Its Article 5 requires the consumer to be informed, before the contract is concluded, of the provider's main line of business, MERSİS trade registry number, full address, e-mail address and telephone number, and — where an intermediary stands between provider and consumer — of that intermediary's name, trading name, full address and the capacity in which it is authorised to act. The list below gathers the minimum checks arising from those two instruments.

• Is the full registered trading name shown? Is "insurance" used on its own as a brand?
• Is the Levha registration number visible, and does it return a match in the TOBB query?
• Are the insurers acted for, and the powers they have granted, published?
• Are the MERSİS number, full address, corporate e-mail and telephone all present?
• Does the site present itself as an insurer, or does it state plainly that it is an agency?
• Is the connection served over HTTPS, and does the domain belong to the named entity?

What Information Is Owed Before You Buy?

The Regulation on Information Duties in Insurance Contracts provides that the duty to inform begins before the contract is concluded and continues throughout its life, and that information is to be given in writing as a rule. Where the parties do not meet physically, information may be provided through a durable medium — which is the legal basis on which online sales rest.

Information given by call centre or telephone may be oral only where the conversation has been recorded magnetically or digitally. The same regulation places the burden of proving that information was given on the insurer.

Article 6 extends the duty to agencies: during the conclusion and continuation of the contract, the obligations laid on the insurer under that regulation apply to insurance agencies as well. "We are only the intermediary" does not remove the duty.

The content of the Information Text is not left open either. The table below sets out its minimum content and what to look for.

Who Should Receive the Premium, and How?

Payment is where online purchases are most often abused. The anchor here is again Article 19/6 of the Insurance Agencies Regulation: an agency must disclose the powers granted to it by the insurers it acts for. Authority to collect premium is one of those powers, and whether an agency holds it can be seen from the published information.

Two things matter when paying: which legal entity receives the money, and what you receive in return. Payment should go to a channel belonging to the entity named on the site or to the insurer it acts for. Transfers to a personal account, answered only with a screenshot, have no basis in any regulation.

After payment, a copy of the policy should reach you and its existence should be verifiable in the system; the transaction is not complete until it has been. The standing of an e-policy is the subject of a separate article. The agency does not grant the cover; indemnity is paid by the insurance company.

How Does the Right of Withdrawal Work Online?

Article 8 of the Regulation on Distance Contracts for Financial Services gives the consumer fourteen days to withdraw from a distance financial services contract without giving reasons and without penalty. For insurance and private pension contracts, provisions elsewhere in the legislation that are more favourable to the consumer govern the withdrawal period.

The period runs from the date the contract is concluded; where all the terms are supplied to the consumer on a durable medium at a later date, it runs from that later date. The burden of proving that the consumer was informed about the right of withdrawal lies with the provider.

Article 13 sets an exception: without prejudice to provisions more favourable to the consumer, the right of withdrawal cannot be exercised for travel and baggage policies valid for less than one month, or similar short-term insurance policies.

The Turkish Commercial Code adds Article 1430/3: before the insurer's liability begins, the policyholder may withdraw by paying half the agreed premium. A request to terminate may be sent by any means of distance communication, and the consumer cannot be required to use a method more onerous than the one used to conclude the contract.

How Is Your Personal Data Protected?

A quotation form is a data collection exercise. Article 10 of Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 (KVKK) requires the data controller, at the time personal data are obtained, to inform the data subject of the controller's identity, the purposes of processing, to whom and for what purpose the data may be transferred, the method and legal basis of collection, and the rights listed in Article 11.

For health insurance quotations the bar is higher. Article 6(1) lists health data among special categories of personal data; Article 6(3) prohibits processing special category data as a rule and permits it only in the enumerated cases, first among them the explicit consent of the data subject. Article 6(4) additionally requires the adequate measures determined by the Board to be taken.

That is why explicit consent in a health quotation form must be presented separately from the general privacy notice and be separately capable of being given; a single tick box passed over without reading the notice does not meet that standard.

Article 12 obliges the controller to take the technical and organisational measures needed to ensure an appropriate level of security, so as to prevent unlawful processing of and access to personal data and to ensure their retention. From the user's side: an encrypted connection, a form asking only for data genuinely needed to quote, and a current privacy notice on the site.

Where Do You Go if Something Goes Wrong?

The first step in a dispute is a written application to the insurance company; it is a precondition for going to the Insurance Arbitration Commission established under Article 30 of Insurance Law No. 5684. Monetary thresholds are revised annually, so quoting figures here would mislead; we deal with the procedure in a separate article.

The information duty carries its own remedy. Under Article 7 of the Regulation on Information Duties in Insurance Contracts, where the duty has not been properly performed, misleading information about the insurer has been given, or the Information Text has been drawn up contrary to the truth, and any of those has influenced the policyholder's decision, the policyholder may terminate the contract and also claim compensation for any loss suffered.

At RYL Sigorta Aracılık Hizmetleri this is the order we follow for enquiries that reach us online: the trading name and the granted powers are stated openly, cover and exclusions are shared in writing before the policy is issued, and the quotation form asks only for data needed to rate the risk. The cover is granted and the claim is paid by the insurance company; our work is to prepare comparative quotations from the insurers we act for and to document the process.

If you are unsure whether an online offer you have received is genuine, send it to us through our quotation form and we will check the schedule of cover and the issuing insurer with you.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Regulation Amending the Insurance Agencies Regulation, 22 January 2025 — Official Gazette
• Insurance Agencies — SEDDK
• Registered Agency Query Page — TOBB
• Regulation on Information Duties in Insurance Contracts — Turkish Legislation Information System
• Regulation on Distance Contracts for Financial Services — Turkish Legislation Information System
• Personal Data Protection Law No. 6698 — Turkish Legislation Information System
• Insurance Law No. 5684 — Turkish Legislation Information System

This article is for information only; the scope of cover is set by the policy’s specific and general terms.