Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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110. To ask the Minister for Finance when the key information report will be published on employer and public liability insurance claims (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [43074/18]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Increasing the availability of data in relation to Employer and Public Liability Insurance is a matter which was discussed by the Cost of Insurance Working Group and its Report on the Cost of Employer and Public Liability Insurance(2018) recommends a number of actions to improve transparency in this area.

Among these, recommendation 4 tasks the Department of Finance, through the data sub-group, to make a request to Insurance Ireland for similar key metrics which were requested in relation to the Motor Insurance Key Information Reports, and to produce a report by the end of 2018.

I am informed that the data sub-group developed the relevant template for a request to Insurance Ireland for certain key metrics to enable a report to be produced and published in Q4 2018. The data template was submitted to Insurance Ireland by Minister of State D’Arcy on 18 May 2018. In it, he has requested that the completed data submission be returned by the end of Q3. The reason for the request for the data submission to be provided by the end of Q3 was to allow sufficient time in Q4 for the data sub-group to collate and analyse the submission, draft the report, and then publish the Key Information Report on employer liability and public liability insurance.

My officials have informed me that Insurance Ireland has not yet submitted this data. Consequently, they sought an update as to when this will happen. In response Insurance Ireland has indicated that due to the volume and complexity of the data to be collected, it has been necessary for them to instigate a procurement process for a third party to assist them with the exercise. This has been completed and they are liaising with their members and expect to start the data gathering process shortly. For this reason, they have indicated that it will not be possible for them to submit the market data within the required timeframe. However they have made it very clear that they remain committed to expediting this request. They have noted that the request involves the collection of detailed information across a number of reporting, calendar and accident years, broken down between employer liability and public liability insurance, in addition to public liability insurance being broken down further between injury and property claims, and that such data has never been collected to this level of detail before.

The above means therefore that it will not be possible for my Department to produce and publish this Report by the end of this year. I acknowledge that this delay is unfortunate, however it is one which is outside of my control.

At this stage a more realistic date for the production of this report is late in the first quarter/early second quarter 2019.