Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 8 September 2016

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach

Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion

11:00 am

Mr. Mark Fielding:

I will go first. It is a combination of all of what the Acting Chairman has just said, and it is quite difficult for anybody on the outside to give a definitive answer and say it is this one reason or that one. However, the committee has heard today from the legal side of things. It has heard, as I said, of the lazy financial management of insurance companies over the years. We only have to consider where we were back at the turn of the century to see we are in exactly the same position. The committee should consider the MIAB and what it did and see the figures that it got. Until 2013 there was a 40% reduction in motor insurance premiums because the MIAB was able to get at least some information together. However, it comes back again to the information. I honestly could not give the committee one reason, but it is a combination of all of those. We need to know what the factors are so that we can drive at those. Is it because our judges have gone AWOL? Is it because the doctors are charging? Of course it is not. It is not one particular thing; it is all of the above.

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