Expresses concerns that CCPC market study will become ‘just another report’
The Alliance for Insurance Reform has called on the European Commission to expand the scope of its current insurance investigation to include liability insurance and expressed concerns that the market study on the public liability insurance market published by the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission overnight will become ‘just another report’.
Peter Boland, director of the Alliance said “The CCPC report raises the issue of access to the InsuranceLink claims database, currently controlled by established insurers. Access to the motor insurance element of this database is currently being investigated by the European Commission. We call on the Commission to now expand the scope of its investigation to include liability insurance. Additionally, as recommended by the CCPC, that database must be transferred to independent control and made available to any insurer wishing to offer cover in the Irish market. This issue was flagged in the very first Cost of Insurance Working Group report in January 2017 but has been bogged down ever since.”
“We welcome the CCPC’s recommendation that the role of PIAB be enhanced and expanded ‘to provide for it to become the main personal injury settlement channel in the State’ and in particular its suggestion that ‘this could be done by allocating a range of additional functions such as mediation and/or quasi-judicial powers to PIAB.’”
“Furthermore we urge the Central Bank to publish its National Claims Information Database information at insurer level in the first liability Insurance NCID Report due in the first half of 2021, as recommended by the CCPC.
“Finally, the Alliance notes that the massive level of insurance cost increases experienced in many Irish commercial, voluntary & community sectors over the last 5 years is hidden in this report by the broad aggregated structure of the research carried out on behalf of the CCPC and the lack of any independent data noted by the Commission.”
Commenting on the publication of the report, Eoin McCambridge, managing director of McCambridge’s of Galway and director of the Alliance said “The time for additional reports is long gone. Policyholders have been closing down due to unsustainable insurance costs and this report will not in itself strike fear into the hearts of anyone making money on the back of policyholders struggling to pay their premiums. In the last 4 years we have had the Oireachtas Finance Committee Report on Insurance Costs, two Cost of Insurance Working Group (CIWG) reports and 11 CIWG Updates; the reports of the Personal Injuries Commission and most recently the Action Plan from the Cabinet Sub-Group on Insurance Reform. Now we need action to make sure the CCPC market study does not become just another report.“
