Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The NCID contains information on the cost of non-life insurance claims. Life insurance is not part of my brief for this particular purpose. The Central Bank of Ireland is responsible for collecting this information, as well as for managing the NCID under the Central Bank Act 2018. It can allow the scope of the NCID report to evolve in line with requirements.

The Central Bank has already identified a number of enhancements it is planning to make to future reports.  For motor insurance, this will include increased historic income and expenditure data; information on catastrophic weather events; and duration of claim settlements.  For employer and public liability, it plans to collect additional data including more detail on costs related to re-insurance and commissions.  In addition, the bank will investigate information of policy excesses and limits, and the collection of further settlement channel data following the introduction of the new personal injuries guidelines.  In this regard, there is ongoing technical work being undertaken by the Central Bank and our officials.  I hope that the bank will consider publishing certain NCID data more frequently than is currently the case. Many of the reports come out annually. We would all benefit from a higher frequency than just annual reports.

Separately, the Government has also agreed to draft the insurance (miscellaneous provisions) Bill, which will include further NCID enhancements. I believe it is worth highlighting that the NCID provides a level of information into the insurance sector that is unique to our market. The level of information available from our Central Bank is the greatest level of transparency of any country in Europe, including the UK, which is bringing in some measures. They do not benefit in the first case from the information from an NCID report that we already have in Ireland. I want to make that point clear.

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