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:

We had a 6% margin in 2018. On top of that is investment income, which is the money we put aside to put back into our business and into reserves we all need to hold. A lot of claims take a long time to pay back so I would not describe our figures as superprofits. There have been reductions in home and motor insurance but not liability, which is a problem for us and a challenging area. The reductions will feed through to lower margins in the years to come and the danger of us of getting back into a boom and bust cycle, in which we compete strongly with each other, is that we drive the margin down to a level at which we start making losses again and require premium increases. Customers want stability. They all want reductions in premiums but they do not want big increases followed by big reductions. We plan for a sustainable level of profit and we plan three years ahead. I look at the profit level in three years' time and it will be a bit lower than 2018, which means I need to grow my business. I want to get into more lines of business because that will mean the cost of claims becomes more reliable and more predictable.

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