Results 22,241-22,260 of 37,025 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Did Mr. Dunne have responsibility for Ireland, Europe and Africa?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Is it correct to say that Mr. Dunne had quite a senior position in Zurich?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Is it correct to say Mr. Dunne has a good global view of the insurance market?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Insurance Ireland will come before the committee but, as Mr. Dunne indicated, we do not have the data and the society does not have the data. However, given his very senior position within Zurich plc, the sixth largest insurance company in Ireland in terms of motor insurance, which was still recording underwriting losses in 2014 according to the Central Bank’s accounts and published...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: The only reason I make the point is that there were a number of comments to the effect that witnesses do not have access to the data, but Mr. Dunne would have had access to the data.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: The information might be confidential.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I appreciate Mr. Dunne’s answer. Insurance Ireland was in the media this morning and the comment was made that insurance is a very simple product. The premise is that premiums are taken in and money is paid out in claims.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: However, there is another element to that which was not mentioned, namely, that insurance companies invest premiums.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: What has been happening in recent years, according to the Central Bank’s statistics, is that we have lost €100 million in three years in terms of investments. Is that not the case?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: The actual investment income attributable to loss has decreased from €278 million in 2012 to €176 million in 2014, which is a drop of more than €100 million.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: During that period the underwriting loss increased.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Is it the norm that insurance companies offset underwriting loss with investment income?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I spoke earlier about smokescreens. There has been much focus on the expensive necks of the Irish people and fraud but very little focus on the fact that the insurance companies are seeing a dramatic drop in investment income, which is one of the reasons why premiums are going up because the income to offset the underwriting loss no longer exists. Is this analysis correct?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: The investment income in 2012 would have been about 20% of the premiums that would have come in.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Does Mr. Mulligan agree with the assessment of the former Governor of the Central Bank when he wrote to the Minister for Finance in a confidential letter that was released to me under freedom of information? In the letter, he said that a number of non-life insurance companies took a very optimistic view of the future economic outlook, built up unsustainable overheads and followed an...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: He refers to a number of non-life insurance companies. He does not suggest that it applied to all of them.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: We know this from statistics but when Professor Honohan referred to this cohort of non-life insurance companies, he said that several Irish general insurance companies had eroded their capital base. Can we accept that this was a factual point in 2015? He was talking about previous years. Part of the letter is redacted, which I presume is composed of figures that I am not allowed to see....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: That is the model. They charged on that basis because they were of the view that they would have this type of investment income into the future. Quantitative easing came along and basically said that they could not get the 4% return on their Government bonds that they used to get and would get negative rates. This means that insurance companies have lost that portion of their income but...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (14 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I accept that. The problem is that the underwriting or investment losses are not only attributable to the motor insurance industry. In respect of the €100 million that was lost in those three years or the smaller amount of income generated between 2000 and 2014, a small portion of that came from the motor insurance industry. Is it not the case that because motor insurance is...