Mr. Gerry Monks:

I am account director with JDM Insurance Services. I have been looking after retailers - typically shops and convenience stores - across the country for more than 20 years in my 43-year career in insurance. These are commercial businesses but they are also families. When I looked at an analysis of the level of increase for the purposes of this exercise, I deliberately wanted to make sure I was not picking out cases with claims so I whittled it down to a certain number. I came up with a figure of 73% over a five-year period for the average increase applied to these businesses. Of the 29 selected cases, 15 were claim-free. I took out extraordinary figures to try to make it read realistically. Insurance in Ireland is broken. The very simple fact is we seem to somehow tolerate levels of payment for minor injuries and all other classes of injury that are multiples of those in other countries such as our nearest neighbour. The UK has a population that is more than ten times the size of our population, yet we pay out approximately four times more than is paid out in the UK. The figures do not add up and the system does not work. We do not have the numbers to justify it. The reserving being placed by insurers has increased in accordance with Central Bank best practice and nobody will argue with that. Claims do not come and go inside a matter of weeks or months. They take years. A claim can be outstanding for four years and in the meantime, the policyholder - the family - will be faced with an increased bill because the outstanding or reserved claim will be treated as a claim paid. Even if the claim is ultimately not paid and the only costs incurred by the insurer are its investigation costs, the premium increase will have taken place. It is history now. The insurers do not have the wherewithal to go back and pay what they owe to Joe Bloggs back from four years ago. They look at the end of every year and balance out what they need to make sure they do not go into the red because if they do, the Central Bank will close them down.