•  For 2015 Legal fees amounted to 35% of total cost of compensation
•  For 2015 Other costs amounted to 9% of total cost of compensation
•   In 2015 € 102 million was paid in legal fees

Insurance Ireland notes the comments made by President of the Law Society across a number of media outlets over the last number of days. He has referred to the statements made by the insurance industry as “lies” and that “legal costs have gone down for the last five years”. In addition he asserted that key cost drivers may have been medical or engineers fees.

Speaking today the CEO of Insurance Ireland, Kevin Thompson stated “on behalf of our members we have been highlighting the need to tackle the cost of claims for two years.” Mr. Thompson continued “in response to a request from Minister Murphy Insurance Ireland supplied the working group with a detailed breakdown of the component cost of all bodily injury claims over the last three years. In order to bring some much needed accuracy to the debate we decided today to publish these costs.”

Note for Editors

Below please see the information submitted to Minister Murphy by Insurance Ireland.

The industry claims data assembled below illustrates the following trends with regard to closed motor personal injury claims:[1]

·         The total cost of compensation for motor personal injury has risen each year for the last three years:

§  2013 – €254,691,681

§  2014 – €273,968,883

§  2015 – €292,717,374

§  Increase in total cost of compensation between 2013 and 2015: €38,025,693 or 15% increase

·         The total claims costs for motor personal injury have risen each year for the last three years:

§  2013 – €378,806,193

§  2014 – €391,560,995

§  2015 – €422,155,117

§  Increase in total claims costs for motor bodily injury between 2013 and 2015: €43,348,924 or 11% increase

·         Claimants Legal fees have increase each year for the last three years:

§  2013 – €66,031,673

§  2014 – €69,489,662

§  2015 – €74,166,587

§  Increase in Claimants Legal fees from 2013 – 2015: €8,134,914 or 12% increase over the three years.

·         Insurance Company legal fees have decreased between 2013 and 2015 (there was a slight rise in costs between 2014 and 2015).

§  2013 – €37,602,231

§  2014 – €25,608,518

§  2015 –€27,744,301

§  Decrease in Insurance Company legal fees between 2013 – 2015: €9,857,928 or 26% reduction over the three years.

Other- Number of Motor Personal Injury Claims Closed (Exclude Accepted PIAB Awards) –  Excluding Nil Claims. – (Combined Post-IB& Court Awards)

(Based on returns from companies representing 78% of the Insurance Ireland motor market in 2015 gross written premium terms)

Other – In respect of the closed motor personal injury claims:   

(a) The total cost of compensation paid to claimants in each of the 3 years. 

     (b)    The total legal costs involved in each of the 3 years split by claimants, own costs etc.

     (c)     The total of other costs involved in each of the 3 years (medical reports actuarial reports, engineers’ reports etc.)

(Based on returns from companies representing 78% of the Insurance Ireland motor market in 2015 gross written premium terms)

Media contact:

John Byrne

Communications Manager, Insurance Ireland Tel: 01 644 7781 / 087 9383852

Nuala Buttner

Q4 Public Relations Tel: 01 475 1444 / 085 174 4275

[1] Based on returns for 78% of the Insurance Ireland motor market. If this was extrapolated up to 100% the total figures would be larger.