Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Thursday, 3 October 2019

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

Insurance Sector: Discussion (Resumed)

Mr. Anthony Brennan:

Yes, and we have considered competition law. I cannot talk about our actual premiums but I can go a little bit further and talk about the theoretical premium calculation model. To be very clear, for competition reasons, I am not saying this is exactly Zurich's premium. Right now, if we consider motor insurance, roughly 30% of our claims are personal injury-type or soft tissue damage and we are four times the UK average. If we reduced the figure to twice the UK average, which is reasonable, and thus a reduction of 50%, I think I could bring that 30% in a theoretical model down to 15%. It would be quite reasonable that if that were to happen and insurers had reduced their prices, with all things being equal and somewhere in the region of 10% to 15%, the committee should ask us a lot of questions. I cannot really go much further than that.

For liability, where the vast majority of claims are injury related, it would be a higher percentage and probably close to 20%. Again, this is a theoretical pricing model and not a commitment on Zurich's premiums, which I cannot give for competition reasons.

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