Which Insurances Are Compulsory in Türkiye?

Why and How a Cover Becomes Compulsory

Compulsory insurances exist less to protect the buyer's own property than to make sure the loss a risk imposes on other people does not go uncompensated. That is why most of them are liability covers: an injured third party's access to compensation is not left to the solvency of whoever caused the harm.

Article 13 of Insurance Law No. 5684 sets the frame: the President may create compulsory insurances where the public interest requires it. The same article places a duty on insurers, who may not refuse to write compulsory covers falling within the classes they are licensed for.

Pricing is treated separately. Under article 12, tariffs are as a rule set freely by insurers; but for compulsory insurances created by statute, the sums insured together with tariffs and instructions are fixed by the Minister and published in the Official Gazette. Neither an agency nor an insurer can vary the statutory limit on its own.

In practice a cover's compulsory status becomes visible when its general conditions are published. SEDDK lists the compulsory classes whose general conditions it has issued under a dedicated heading on its legislation pages.

The Compulsory Covers With Published General Conditions

The table below gathers the policies SEDDK publishes under its compulsory insurance heading and states who each one binds. The source column carries only references written expressly in the relevant general conditions or statute.

Two points are worth holding on to. First, in most entries the obligation attaches to a capacity rather than to a person: vehicle operator, licensed carrier, physician, holder of a private security permit, LPG distributor. Second, most of these policies answer for third party loss; damage to your own property needs separate cover.

One Obligation That Fell Away: Road Carrier Liability

This is where compulsory insurance lists most often go stale. Compulsory Road Transport Liability Insurance was for many years a separate policy resting on articles 17 to 25 of Road Transport Law No. 4925. All of those articles were repealed by article 17 of Law No. 6704 of 14 April 2016.

The replacement moved the cover inside the motor policy. Under article 28/A of the Regulation on Tariff Application Principles, for vehicles carrying out intercity and international transport within the scope of Law No. 4925, the limits of the motor third party liability policy apply at twice the relevant limits set out in the annexes.

The transition was governed too. Provisional article 10 provides that existing carrier liability policies terminate automatically, with no further formality, when the motor third party liability policy for the same vehicle expires, and that the premium is refunded on a pro rata daily basis.

The practical upshot: if you carry passengers intercity or internationally, you are no longer looking for two separate liability policies. What you check is whether your motor policy limits are being applied at double. Bodily injury to passengers remains covered separately by the compulsory passenger seat personal accident policy.

What Happens if a Compulsory Cover Is Missing?

The sanction is not only an administrative fine; the real mechanism is that the policy works as a gate. Under article 13 of the Insurance Law, authorities empowered to license or supervise an activity or the use of a thing are obliged, in the transactions they carry out, to check whether the compulsory insurance has been taken out within valid limits.

The same paragraph states the consequence: where cover within valid limits is found not to exist, the transaction is not processed, and the activity subject to compulsory insurance is suspended by the competent authorities until valid cover is obtained.

On the housing side the gate is concrete. Under article 11 of Law No. 6305, registration and cancellation transactions at the land registry cannot proceed without the compulsory earthquake insurance certificate, and utilities check for the policy when water and electricity subscriptions are opened.

In motor, delay is priced directly into the premium. Under article 7 of the Regulation on Tariff Application Principles, 5% is added to the next policy's premium for every 30 days the renewal is not carried out, capped at 50%. Article 9 applies the same rule to those who newly acquire operator status.

When the Other Side Has No Cover: the Guarantee Account

Since the purpose of compulsory insurance is to protect the injured party, the case of an uninsured wrongdoer had to be addressed as well. Article 14 of the Insurance Law establishes the Guarantee Account (Güvence Hesabı) within the Insurance, Reinsurance and Pension Companies Association of Türkiye.

The Account covers the compulsory liability insurances created under article 13 of that Law and under Laws No. 2918 and No. 4925, as well as compulsory covers created under the repealed Law No. 7397, and pays up to the valid limits fixed for those insurances.

• Bodily injury to a person where the insured cannot be identified.
• Bodily injury caused by those who had not taken out cover within the limits valid at the date of the loss.
• Material and bodily loss an insurer was liable to pay where its licences in all classes are revoked for financial weakness, or where it becomes insolvent.
• Bodily injury in an accident involving a stolen or hijacked vehicle, where the Highway Traffic Law does not hold the operator liable.
• Payments to be made by the Turkish Motor Insurers Bureau for Green Card insurance purposes.

Is the Compulsory Policy Enough, and Where Are You Exposed?

Compulsory covers share one limit: most answer for the loss you cause to others, not for loss to your own property. Motor third party liability secures the operator's liability towards third parties; damage to your own vehicle needs own-damage cover, known in Türkiye as kasko.

The earthquake side draws the same line. Compulsory earthquake insurance answers for the structural parts of the building up to the sum insured; contents, debris removal and loss of rent call for a voluntary household policy or an additional agreement.

Liability can leave gaps too. A compulsory professional indemnity policy covers one profession up to one limit; other loss your business may cause to third parties, and your liability towards your own employees, are the subject of separate policies.

The right question is therefore not which covers were compulsory, but which loss stays with you once the compulsory policy has done its work. Answering it means writing down the part of the risk you retain.

Where We Come In as an Agency

As an insurance agency our work is to identify which compulsory covers your activity triggers, to obtain quotations from the insurers we act for, and to show which cover should take over where the compulsory policy stops.

Because the sums insured, tariffs and instructions for compulsory classes are fixed by the Minister and published in the Official Gazette, the limits determined for the relevant year apply. That is why no figures appear in this article; we confirm the current limit together with you when the policy is issued.

The policy is issued, and any claim paid, by the insurance company. The links below lead to the relevant product pages if you would like to go through your own position.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

• Insurance Law No. 5684 — Turkish Legislation Information System
• SEDDK — Insurance general conditions, including the compulsory classes
• General Conditions of Compulsory Motor Third Party Liability Insurance — SEDDK
• Disaster Insurance Law No. 6305 — DASK
• Road Transport Law No. 4925 — Insurance Association of Türkiye
• Regulation on Tariff Application Principles for Compulsory Motor Third Party Liability Insurance — Turkish Legislation Information System

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