Mr. Brendan Dempsey:

I would like the committee to hear one more story. It relates to a lady who was refused flood cover. They told her that she was not covered even though she had insurance. The reason was that they discovered that she had not ticked the box that said she had made a previous claim. She had made a small claim 18 years previously but because she did not tick the box to say that, therefore, as far as the insurance companies were concerned, she had made a false declaration and she has no cover. I would not ask the same lady to book a train ticket to Dublin. She is not capable of doing it.

We have discovered what happens if one goes home in the morning to find that the insurance company has sent a bill for insurance for the next year, and if one decides with one’s wife that it looks high and one will shop around. One would try four or five different insurance companies, some of which might perhaps be dearer. One of them might say “No, we are not interested”. One might then decide, with one’s wife, to stay with the existing company, which is not that bad, and go ahead and pay the money so that one is insured. What one does not realise is that the insurance company that refused to provide a quote is refusing one cover. They go diddly, diddly on a little machine and enter one’s name and address into a central statistical log for all insurance companies. They have refused to provide cover and if, any time after that, one makes a claim, the first thing one’s insurance company will do is to see whether one has been refused insurance and there it is in front of them. Accordingly, one has made a false declaration and one is not insured. That is despicable because people are not able to deal with such technology. For example, at the moment one of the big companies, Allianz - a very good company - is offering cheap insurance. It is advertising the fact on television at the moment, but one can only book it online. One cannot get it from a broker. I am nearly 70. Someone like me could not go online to get it. I do not know how to do that. If I attempted it I would probably make a hash of it and I would find that when push came to shove, I was not covered. Insurance companies are treating people in a despicable way.