Car repair shops may use their own labour rate for RCA repairs, the Constitutional Court confirms

An insurer asked the Constitutional Court to strike down the rule that lets car repair shops use their own hourly labour rate for repairs paid out of RCA insurance. The Court refused, for the fourth time on the same question. Decision no. 617 of 20 November 2025, published on Tuesday in the Official Gazette of Romania, finds that Article 14 para. (3) of Law no. 132/2017 is constitutional. It is the second decision of the Court affecting drivers to be published in recent weeks, after the one holding that a court cannot shorten the length of a driving licence suspension.

The contested provision consists of a single sentence: the cost of the repair is established using the specialised valuation systems or through documents issued under the conditions of the law, in which the vehicle repair shop may use its own posted value of the labour hour. The specialised valuation systems are the professional estimating programs, which the Court also lists by name: Audatex, Autovista, DAT, GT Motive.

The plea of unconstitutionality was raised by Societatea de Asigurare Reasigurare City Insurance, in four separate cases, before the Bucharest District Court, Sector 1, before the Alba Tribunal and twice before the Timișoara District Court. All four concerned monetary claims arising from compulsory RCA insurance, and the Court joined them.

What it changes in practice

The repair shop’s labour rate remains a lawful basis of calculation. The insurer argued that the wording allows repair shops to set prices arbitrarily, far above market benchmarks, because the law does not require them to refer to any criterion, neither to reference prices on the market nor to those recommended by the manufacturer. The Court rejected the argument: the provision expressly sets out the two ways of quantifying the cost, it is drafted clearly and unambiguously, and it therefore meets the requirements of clarity, precision and foreseeability.

Neither method takes precedence. This is the most useful clarification in the decision, at paragraph 26. The legislation does not provide that one method of valuation prevails to the detriment of the other. Consequently, the insurer cannot impose the estimating system, nor can the repair shop automatically impose its own rate. What is left is the agreement of the parties and, failing that, a way of settling the dispute.

Three routes when there is no agreement. The Court lists them: the alternative dispute resolution mechanisms, such as the Alternative Dispute Resolution Entity for the non-banking financial sector, known as SAL-FIN, or mediation, or else a final judgment of the court, under Article 23 para. (5) of Law no. 132/2017.

The uncovered difference can be recovered from the driver at fault. The Court recalls that nothing prevents the tort liability of the insured person, that is of the person at fault for the accident, from being engaged on the basis of the principle of full compensation for the damage, for the part of the compensation the insurer does not bear. For the injured party, this means that the ceiling paid by the insurance is not necessarily the end of the road.

Insurance is an aleatory contract, and risk is part of it. This is the argument with which the Court rejects the criticism based on the right of property: by concluding the contract, the insurer acquires the chance of a gain and at the same time exposes itself to the risk of a loss, while the existence and the extent of that loss depend on a future and uncertain event. Risk is an essential attribute of the free market economy, and that is what justifies free competition.

Abuses in practice are not questions of constitutionality. The Court says plainly that any malfunctions arising in the way repair shops apply the provision cannot be converted into defects of unconstitutionality. In other words, if a repair shop inflates the bill, the remedy is contractual or judicial, in the individual case, and not the repeal of the rule.

The fourth time on the same question. The provision had already been reviewed through Decision no. 583 of 23 November 2022, Decision no. 126 of 14 March 2024 and Decision no. 244 of 25 April 2024, all of them dismissing the pleas as unfounded. The Court finds that no new elements have intervened, so the solution and the reasoning keep their validity.

What has changed compared with the previous situation

Nothing in the text of the law. The decision confirms a rule in force since 2017 and a line of case law opened in 2022. For drivers and for repair shops, the rules of calculation remain the ones that have applied until now.

What is consolidated is the position of repair shops in their negotiations with insurers. After a fourth consecutive dismissal, the argument that a shop’s own labour rate would be unconstitutional for lack of foreseeability no longer stands a reasonable chance before the Court. The discussion moves for good into the area of evidence in each individual case: how much the repair actually cost, what the estimate provides, what the expert report says.

For injured parties, the decision has a less obvious practical effect. It does not oblige the insurer to pay the rate of the repair shop the claimant has chosen; it only confirms that this rate is a lawful basis of calculation, just as valid as the estimating system. The difference between the two remains a matter of negotiation and, when negotiation fails, a matter for SAL-FIN, mediation or the court.

One detail of judicial practice is also worth noting. The Alba Tribunal did not express its opinion on the plea, although Article 29 para. (4) of Law no. 47/1992 required it to do so. It is the second such situation recorded in the same issue of the Official Gazette of Romania, after the one in Decision no. 757/2025, where the Bucharest Court of Appeal omitted the same thing. Neither the presidents of the two Chambers, nor the Government, nor the Ombudsman communicated the points of view requested in this case.

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