Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The issue of insurance has been dealt with and discussed by this committee, on and off. It seems as if the book of quantum is being thrown to the wind at this stage, given what we read in the newspapers on settlement figures and all the rest. I am curious as to why this is the case and why the book of quantum seems to be used a lot less. How does Insurance Ireland view that problem, from the perspective of representing the underwriters? Why are so many cases being settled without use of the book of quantum or the figures within it?

There has been no record of all of the claims that are being made. One group will blame somebody else, and maybe underwriters are blaming brokers while brokers are blaming someone else, and all the rest, but if we had a way of recording who is claiming and how much they are being paid, these serial claimers would not be long in coming to light. This has been a problem in the industry because this information has not been shown. I know some of the insurance companies are doing work behind the scenes but it is in an ad hocmanner. In addition, governments, past and present, have been keen to get some sort of a record in this regard so they know who is claiming, what amounts are being claimed for various injuries and the names of the people who are claiming. If people are claiming regularly, or if members of the same family are claiming, we could shine a greater light on this. That is the second part of the question.

On a further point, I was shocked to hear a story at first hand when it was brought up at the committee. An insurance company - that is, the underwriter, not the broker - made a settlement when somebody made a claim against an insured party. The man who made the claim had a little tip in a car and took the other driver's insurance details. One insurance company contacted the other insurance company but the man never heard a word about it and was not asked about the incident, although he said there was hardly a mark on the car and it was just a little bang. The next thing, by chance, somebody told him the other man had got €20,000 out of this. He was gob-smacked. Although it was claimed against his insurance, he did not know about it until he came to pay his insurance premium. I found it hard to believe that, given a claim was being made against a person's policy, somebody would not lift a telephone to tell the person what was going on. That is probably not par for the course but it must happen. In this case, this man was adamant it happened and the committee has heard of a similar case.

Those are three issues which I think would come under Mr. Thompson's remit.