The life of Federation Council Speaker Sergei Mironov is worth 2.8 million rubles ($93,000).
The administration for the Federation Council has decided to take out a life insurance policy for that amount for the speaker as well as policies worth 2.3 million rubles ($76,000) for each of the other 166 senators in the upper house of the parliament.
Insurers have until June 6 to bid in a government tender to offer the life insurance policies for the senators, as well as insurance from illnesses and accidents, according to a notice posted on the government's web site for state purchases. Senators who fall ill or are injured in accidents would also be allowed to collect up to the full amount of their life insurance policy.
Federation Council Senator Vasily Duma said the proposed compensation was small compared with the possible cost of treatment.
"In today's health care, this sum isn't good for anything," Duma said by telephone Wednesday.
Duma, a former president of Slavneft who represents the Kostroma region, also said the government should be providing insurance to socially vulnerable groups rather than insuring senators. "Let the state insure veterans and pensioners," he said.
The proposed amount is lower-than-average for life insurance and high for health insurance, said Yulia Alyokhina, head of marketing for the insurer Ingosstrakh-Zhizn. She said life insurance usually amounted to two to 10 annual salaries.
In an income declaration released last month, Mironov said he earned 2.4 million rubles ($79,000) as speaker last year.
A senator's average annual salary is 1.4 million rubles ($46,000), Novaya Gazeta reported in late March, citing the Federation Council's press office.
The tender's contact person, Lyubov Vinogradova, and Mironov spokesman Vladimir Yeryomenko did not take repeated calls to their offices Wednesday.
The tender's results are to be announced by July 8.
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